A Complete Platform for Mobile Theft Reporting to Enable Device Blocking
Mobile Theft Deterrence Platform
Addressing Lost & Stolen Mobile Devices
Mobile Theft
Mobile Theft is an extremely lucrative proposition for criminals around the world, as they not only profit from selling the device itself, but also benefit from accessing personal information stored on the device. This has resulted in widespread repercussions for consumers, governments, and the technology industry as a whole.
Mobile theft has been on the rise in a significant number of countries. Devices stolen in one country are often transported to and sold in other countries to avoid being blocked in the countries that have a system deployed to specifically block stolen devices.
While coordination and information sharing amongst governments, mobile operators, and GSMA with its Global Blacklist seem like a reasonable approach, in real life, this scheme falls short of producing an effective solution to combat mobile theft and prevent reuse of stolen devices.
There are a number of factors that make this approach less than ideal. A few of these factors include tampering and reprogramming of device IMEIs that are used for unique identification, operators' unwillingness to report stolen device data with GSMA or other stakeholders, operators' unwillingness to block a stolen device on their networks, governments' inability to verify blocking of stolen devices on mobile networks, and lack of network audit capability for the government to ensure compliance with the stolen device blocking mandate.
An ideal solution also requires implementation of a system that identifies mobile devices with tampered and/or cloned device identifiers and differentiates them from genuine devices.
DeTer
Our platform - DeTer - addresses the above mentioned shortcoming and offers a complete solution to the problem of mobile theft in conjunction with our other platforms including DeTect and DeWise.
The DeTer platform provides incident reporting, case tracking, list generation functionality to enable blocking and unblocking of lost and stolen devices by mobile operators on mobile networks.
DeTer provides for subscriber credential verification, report filing, and offers system APIs for authorized entities, like police and mobile operators, to have full system access. Furthermore, it offers network auditing capability so that regulators can validate operators' compliance to stolen device blocking as per country regulations.
The platform also enables authorized entities responsible for system operation to capture, identify, and track the complete incident in one place through the entire lifecycle from new incident reporting to blocking to case tracking, through a unique case identifier.
The system supports an unlimited number of agents that can facilitate subscriber incident reporting. The system is fully customizable and stolen device reports and lists from other agencies e.g. LEA, customs can be easily integrated.
It also provides integrated business intelligence component for trend monitoring and case status filtering.
DeTer platform conforms to the ITU Recommendation ITU-T Q.5051 “Framework for combating the use of stolen mobile devices” and can be deployed either on a premises or in the cloud, such as AWS.