M
Member
Speaking in the House of Lords on 7 January 2026
Debate
Crime and Policing BillContribution
We need to do something to block the phone from being valuable, and that really is down to the IMEI number. That is the thing that identifies that phone. You can put another SIM in it, but the phone itself is identified by an IMEI number. If that can be blocked from the network, it will make a difference. It is possible in this country but it is not actually working 100%, and it has certainly not been used for all these phones that have been sold abroad, and yet it could be. The international provision of the cloud means that all these networks could actually do something about it.
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