£250k to help police ID stolen phones

'Yes, officer, that's my mobile... and my wallet...'

£250,000 of new funding has been made available to help police identify stolen mobile phones, the Home Office has announced.

Home Office minister Alan Campbell said the funding will be used to integrate the Police National Computer (PNC) with the National Mobile Phone Register (NMPR) - meaning police officers will be able to make a single call to determine whether a handset is stolen or not, providing its owner has registered it.

The NMPR - which has around 22 million phones currently registered - links to voluntary databases such as Immobilise where people can input their phone's details to ensure it can be identified as theirs in the event of it being lost or stolen.

An average of 25,000 police searches of the NMPR are carried out every month, according to the Home Office - with an average of a quarter of searches resulting in the police obtaining "vital information", said Campbell.

"I believe that putting this invaluable tool at frontline officers' fingertips will see that number rise further," he added in a statement.

However with the rise of embedded NFC technology, more mobiles are likely to become payment devices, essentially carrying their owner's cash.

To tackle the problems presented by NFC, the Home Office has been working with the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit and industry to ensure crime prevention safeguards are built into mobile wallets. It is also developing an m-commerce 'crime-prevention charter'.

Earlier this month, mobile operator Orange and financial services company Barclaycard announced a long-term strategic partnership to develop m-payments technology including mobile wallet handsets.