UK phone retailers lock shop doors while trading to tackle rising thefts
Mobile phone retailers are locking their doors during trading hours and considering using “kill switches” to disable stolen devices, as incidents of theft increase more than ninefold in some high streets due to organised crime,VodafoneThree, which operates the largest retail network with 650 stores across the UK, has experienced a 967% increase in theft incidents in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2024,“In recent months, the telecoms sector has seen an alarming surge in aggressive robberies and attempted robberies in stores, particularly across London and the south-east of England,” said a spokesperson for the company,“VodafoneThree has seen a nine-times increase in these types of incidents,”In response, the company has introduced measures including a locked door policy in some stores, which requires security guards to open the store’s doors to customers during trading hours, rather than them remaining open at all times.
“This is a disappointing, but necessary step,” the spokesperson said.The newly formed mobile phone company, which employs 4,300 staff at its stores, defines an incident as a robbery, or attempted robbery, by groups of two or more masked individuals who enter a store and threaten staff to gain access to stock cages to steal devices.Retailers have repeatedly raised concerns over increased levels of shoplifting in recent years.Virgin Media O2, which has 305 stores with about 2,600 employees, has seen more than double the number of robberies and attempted robberies in the first half of this year compared with all of 2024.The company, which is undertaking its biggest ever investment in boosting security at its stores, said the number of attempted robberies had at least doubled annually for the past three years, albeit from a low base in 2022.
The investment in new security measures includes increasing the number of security guards, a locked door policy in crime hotspots, installing new panic alarms and enhancing security monitoring systems.The company said it had already reduced the number of successful robberies where the measures had been introduced and, like VodafoneThree, it was collaborating more intensively with the police to catch thieves.Virgin Media O2 said more than 40 people had been arrested and charged since last July, and the robbery success rate had halved between 2022 and this year.Will Houldsworth, the director of retail at Virgin Media O2, said: “We have seen an unacceptable increase in attempted store robberies over recent months, driven by the activities of organised criminal gangs targeting mobile phone stores in London and the south-east.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotion“Through implementing a ‘locked door’ policy at certain stores at higher risk, and investing in more security guards, panic alarms and enhanced in-house security systems, we’re fighting back and protecting our people and customers.
“We’re continuing to work with law enforcement, and with other providers experiencing similar issues, to tackle this problem and secure arrests and convictions.”In June, a select committee of MPs accused Apple and Google of profiting from customers having to replace smartphones stolen in multimillion-pound street phone-snatching operations that police said were carried out by organised criminal gangs.The Metropolitan police provided evidence to the House of Commons science and technology committee which said they had been trying for the last two years to get smartphone companies to prevent stolen devices from accessing their cloud services so that they were no longer “smart”, therefore dramatically reducing their resale value.Representatives for Apple and Google pointed to other security features built into phones.While the select committee session focused on mobile phone thefts from members of the public – 80,000 devices of all kinds were stolen in London alone last year – smartphone sellers are understood to be keen to see the introduction of some form of mechanism to make unsold phones that are stolen from stores inoperable – a so-called “kill switch”.
For example, in Apple’s own stores it has enhanced security measures that effectively make their phones unusable if they are taken out of the retail outlet.When asked for comment Apple pointed to a post on its website last month about how it “protects user data and deters iPhone theft with advanced security protections”.Apple said it collaborated “with law enforcement agencies across the globe” to tackle device theft and “counterfeit parts operations”.A recent report by the device insurer SquareTrade estimated that 80% of stolen devices were Apple products.The company said it had seen a 425% increase in “snatch-related” insurance claims in the UK between June 2021 and May this year.
Google Pixel 10 review: the new benchmark for a standard flagship phone
Google’s new cheapest Pixel 10 has been upgraded with more cameras, a faster chip and some quality software that has brought it out of the shadow of its pricier Pro siblings to set a new standard of what you should expect from a base-model flagship phone.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The regular Pixel 10 costs £799 (€899/$799/A$1,349) – the same as last year’s Pixel 9 – undercutting the 10 Pro by £200 and matching rivals from Samsung and Apple while offering more for your money
‘Slap on the wrist’: critics decry weak penalties on Google after landmark monopoly trial
A judge ruled on Tuesday that Google would not be forced to sell its Chrome browser or the Android operating system, saving the tech giant from the most severe penalties sought by the US government. The same judge had ruled in favor of US prosecutors nearly a year ago, finding that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly with its namesake search engine.Groups critical of Google’s dominance in the internet search and online advertising industry are furious. They contend the judge missed an opportunity to enact meaningful change in an industry that has suffocated under the crushing weight of its heaviest player. Tech industry groups and investors, by contrast, are thrilled
Juliet Congreve obituary
My mother, Juliet Congreve, who has died aged 76, was a pioneer in library automation and later had a successful university teaching career specialising in human-computer interaction. For most of her professional life, she worked at Middlesex University.In the early 1980s, at Middlesex, she introduced one of the first uses of email in a UK university, enabling librarians to support inter-library loans. She quickly noticed colleagues using it to share updates, ideas and build community – not just to speed up book requests. She led the transition from paper index cards to an electronic catalogue – a complex operation across six university sites and diverse disciplines, including teacher training, art, law and engineering
Google will not be forced to sell Chrome, federal judge rules
Google will not be forced to sell its Chrome browser, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday in the tech giant’s ongoing legal battle over being ruled a monopoly last year.The company will be barred from certain exclusive deals with device makers and must share data from its search engine with competitors, the judge ruled.Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling follows months of speculation surrounding what penalties Google would face as a result of his decision last year that the company violated antitrust laws as it built what he called an online search monopoly. The ruling, one of the most significant antitrust cases in decades, resulted in an additional hearing in April to determine what actions the government should take as a remedy.Mehta’s decision to allow Google to keep Chrome represents a more lenient outcome for the company than what federal prosecutors requested: force the tech giant sell off its marquee search product and to ban it from entering the browser market for five years
Trump fortune balloons by billions after family firm’s crypto token starts trading
The Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, put its namesake digital tokens up for sale on Monday, adding some $5bn in paper value to Donald Trump’s family fortune. The token, known as $WLFI, fell in value on Monday in their first day of trading.The World Liberty tokens were sold to investors after the Trump family and its business partners last year launched the venture, a decentralized finance platform that has also issued a stablecoin, a cryptocurrency meant to maintain a specific price by tying its value to a specific asset.Investors in the tokens voted in July to make them tradable, paving the way for their sale and purchase – and potentially boosting the value of the president’s holdings of them.Early investors can sell up to 20% of their holdings, World Liberty has said
Parents could get alerts if children show acute distress while using ChatGPT
Parents could be alerted if their teenagers show acute distress while talking with ChatGPT, amid child safety concerns as more young people turn to AI chatbots for support and advice.The alerts are part of new protections for children using ChatGPT to be rolled out in the next month by OpenAI, which was last week sued by the family of a boy who took his own life after allegedly receiving “months of encouragement” from the system.Other new safeguards will include parents being able to link their accounts to those of their teenagers and controlling how the AI model responds to their child with “age-appropriate model behaviour rules”. But internet safety campaigners said the steps did not go far enough and AI chatbots should not be on the market before they are deemed safe for young people.Adam Raine, 16, from California, killed himself in April after discussing a method of suicide with ChatGPT
Want wines with attitude? Look to the Jura
Back to school, work, reality: what to eat now summer is over
Rachel Roddy’s recipe for potatoes, onions and green beans | A kitchen in Rome
Sweeteners can harm cognitive health equivalent to 1.6 years of ageing, study finds
Berries are back! Australia’s best-value fruit and veg for September
Cheap, healthy, sustainable and delicious – why mussels are a no-brainer