Report: UK police push for required mobile phone PWs

In an effort to reduce identity theft cases, The Metropolitan Police is pushing to make passwords on cell phones a mandatory practice.

According to The Register, which broke the story this week, Met's National Mobile Phone Crime Unit has been in talks with major manufacturers, like Apple and Samsung, as well as government officials to press for phones to be “sold with a password already in place, so that buyers are dissuaded from leaving their [phones] unlocked.”

NMPCU's efforts to require numeric passwords, or PIN codes, have been longstanding – for more than two years, The Register revealed.

In May, Minnesota became the first state in the U.S. to enact a mandatory “kill switch” law for smartphones, so that consumers can have their devices dismantled and wiped, if stolen. The legislation takes effect next July.