To fight street crime, California recently enacted a law requiring kill switches for cell phones, but many in the field are concerned about implications of the law. Some are worried that law enforcement or service providers could trigger a smartphone’s kill device at the expense of civil liberties. (San Francisco Examiner, August 27, 2014, by Kate Conger)
Others are concerned that the law locks in anti-theft solutions that could become obsolete and consequently a burden for manufacturers. But the main concern expressed by Adi Kamdar of the Electronic Frontier Foundation is that police would give police another dubious tool, ” The issue of law enforcement abuse, however, is a more pressing concern. After cell service shutdowns during the BART protests a few years ago, California set into place law that ostensibly prevented law enforcement from ever engaging in similar acts again. The law, however, codifies a roadmap of sorts — it lays out exactly what needs to happen for law enforcement to shut down communications service. Kill switch bills, like California’s, provide a technical roadmap on top of this legal roadmap by mandating a backdoor of sorts be implemented on all phones.” (GIGAOM, August 26, 2014, by Jeff John Roberts)