South Korea to mandate anti-theft mobile feature | ZDNet

"Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning has completed development work on a new security feature, called Kill Switch, which it wants to make available in all smartphones sold in the country.

South Korea is looking to mandate the implementation of an anti-theft tool in all smartphones sold in the country, as it looks to curb growing incidents of theft in the country. 

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning last week said it had completed development work on a new security feature, called Kill Switch, reported Yonhap News Agency. Designed with local tech players, the initiative first commenced in August last year. 

The security feature will allow smartphone users to remotely block all functions in their stolen or lost devices, rendering it unusable. The report noted that while similar functions were available via apps that could lock or delete data in lost smartphones, these devices could be reused once they had been initialized."