SEOUL, KOREA - The Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning announced on April 10 that all of the new smartphones to be produced by domestic companies will be mounted with a theft-proof technology “Kill Switch.”
Kill Switch is theft-proof software that makes smartphones not working through remote control or user setting when they are lost or stolen.
Samsung Electronics plans to mount this software on Galaxy S5 first and other models in the future, while LG Electronics plans to do so, starting from a model that it will release from the third quarter of this year.
Pantech has provided V Protection that has the Kill Switch feature since the Vega No. 6 model that it released in February 2013.
Samsung Electronics plans to use the Reactivation Lock function that prevents the use of smartphones by initializing their setting in case when they are lost or stolen.
In Korea, the number of mobile phones lost stood at 1.23 million cases, up 290,000 from a year ago, with the number of smartphones smuggled to overseas rising by 1,172 cases to 3,059.