Kill-switch Phone Security Act of 2014 filed in Congress

House Bill No. 4511 or the “Kill-switch Phone Security Act of 2014” has been recently filed in Congress which aims to mandate telcos to equip all their postpaid mobile phones with a kill-switch software.

z2-m8-g3

The Kill-switch Phone Security Act of 2014, authored by Ang Mata’y Alagaan Representative Lorna Q. Velasco, is an act that requires all cellphone network service providers to “pre-install a reliable and perfectly functioning kill-switch software” in all their mobile phones that they provide to postpaid subscribers to enable them to remotely disable it or erase all data therein when reported stolen.

“The enactment of this bill into law will effectively weaken, if not eliminate completely, the black market for stolen cellphones which in turn will necessarily lead to a reduction in crimes related to mobile cellphones.”

{source}

Diangson Louie

This article was written by Louie Diangson, Managing Editor of YugaTech. You can follow him at @John_Louie.

https://www.yugatech.com

15 Comments

hehehe says:

10 years ago

Although plagiarism (as usual…), its the cooperation between the telco and the Mobile OS maker. There are already softwares or apps who can do it but you need to be jailbroken or rooted to do it. This will be a target for hackers and homebrewers…
- Reply
Dugal says:

10 years ago

The thought of having a kill switch is okay.. But i think this wont stop the crime related to mobile phone theft because these criminals can still sell the cellphones for their parts..
- Reply

Hen-Sheen says:

10 years ago

Installing a Kill Switch software on a Smartphone isn’t enough, use a software that is inspired by the “Mission Impossible” series; a self – destruct feature (too brutal if you ask me) or a burn/melt – feature that will fry all the components including the Sim or SD Cards rendering the phone truly unusable. It will take them ages to produce the latter, one step at a time.

garz says:

10 years ago

Mauunahan pa yata nila ang US sa kill-switch na to..
- Reply

tmobile_user says:

10 years ago

Sadly, meron na nito ang US. Ang ginagamit nila ay 3rd party application na Lookout. Libre lang siya at premium subscription ang gamit.

Yousef says:

10 years ago

No need as we already have one for us. It’s an app called “Find my iPhone”.
- Reply
Ben says:

10 years ago

I think this Kill-Switch feature was already embedded in LG G3

http://newsroom.mcafee.com/press-release/lg-partners-mcafee-bring-anti-theft-feature-lg-g3
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2349673/lg-g3-gets-anti-theft-kill-switch-courtesy-of-mcafee
- Reply
Ben says:

10 years ago

I think this Kill-Switch feature was already available in LG G3

http://newsroom.mcafee.com/press-release/lg-partners-mcafee-bring-anti-theft-feature-lg-g3
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2349673/lg-g3-gets-anti-theft-kill-switch-courtesy-of-mcafee
- Reply
Ben T. Lador says:

10 years ago

I think this Kill-Switch feature was already embedded in LG G3

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2349673/lg-g3-gets-anti-theft-kill-switch-courtesy-of-mcafee

http://newsroom.mcafee.com/press-release/lg-partners-mcafee-bring-anti-theft-feature-lg-g3
- Reply
Tiger says:

10 years ago

Congress should create a law to allow a postpaid subscriber have to option unlock locked phones after the contract period with a telco.
- Reply
Tiger says:

10 years ago

Congress should create a law to allow a postpaid subscriber have the option unlock locked phones after the contract period with a telco.
- Reply
Helveltica says:

10 years ago

Well I’m glad the government is trying to take action about the issue of stolen phones. Though they should also cooperate with Microsoft, Google, Apple…and other companies to have more effective implementing this. Also to have our Police aware and coordinate with this.

What I’m more concerned though is that the government might just forget this after a while, loosening the guard.
- Reply

noneym says:

10 years ago

How will the police cooperate if they are the masterminds of these phone thefts. Duh.

nagmamagalinglang says:

10 years ago

https://www.google.com/android/devicemanager

^ All android phones Gingerbread and up has that built-in feature.
- Reply