“The [New York] City Council is looking to tighten regulations on pawn shops to stem the surging number of thefts of iPhones and other Apple products,” Erin Durkin reports for The New York Daily News.
“The Council held a hearing Monday on a bill that would require second hand dealers and pawn brokers to keep an electronic record – which cops could access online – including a picture of each item they buy,” Durkin reports. “Cops backed the measure, saying it would make it easier for them to search for stolen smart phones and iPods, as well as other items like jewelry and cars.”
Durkin reports, “There were 16,000 thefts of Apple devices alone in 2012, cops say – and without the surge in those thefts, overall crime would have dropped in the city instead of experiencing a small uptick.”
MacDailyNews Take: Thieves are thieves. They would’ve just stolen something else.
“John Bilich, NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Operations, said cops have already solved cases through shops that voluntarily upload information through software called Leads Online. ‘It is time to update the law to require electronic recordkeeping,’ he said,” Durkin reports. “But pawn shop owners opposed the measure, calling it an invasion of customers’ privacy.”
Read more in the full article here.