Stolen iPhone 4S / I'm surprised there isn't a better recovery system

Question

I recently had my new iPhone 4S stolen. I made a trip to my local waste disposal facility on Saturday and it must have fallen out of my pocket while I was pulling heaps of recycling out of my car. After realising I must have dropped the phone, I drove back and from the time I left to the time I returned, no more than 30 minutes pass and my phone was gone, obviously. I tried calling it but the phone appeared to have been shutoff.
Unfortunately, I hadn't enabled the iCloud service and Find My iPhone - only had the phone for a month - but I had setup the Find My Friends app so that my wife and I could track each other for a laugh. Amazingly enough, about 6 hours after losing my phone, it showed up, no more than 1/2 a block from the waste facility. I watched it remain relatively stationary for 3 hours and then it became unavailable again.
I drew up some flyers the next day and canvassed the area where I suspected the phone to be. Imagine my surprise when, after talking with some people in the vicinity, I discovered that the suspect house was owned by someone who works at the waste facility. So what are the odds of that?
I filed an incident report with the police and went back to the waste facility to speak with the employee. He obviously denied everything and even though our conversation remained civil, I just had a sinking feeling that he was lying to me and let's face it, the GPS led me to his house.
I think what frustrates me the most is the lack of co-operation from the phone company and Apple. It would be ridiculously easy for Apple to track serial numbers. Everytime the phone is connected to a computer to sync or the person uses the iTunes/AppStore apps, the serial number should be sent to Apple with the user's corresponding information. The suspect serial number would be compared to a list of serial numbers from phones reported as stolen. Upon successful match, Apple could then issue a query to a national stolen phone registry (maintained by the authorities - we have one here in Canada) and if there is another match, they could contact the original owner of the phone telling them to contact the police. Apple would generate a claim entry in some sort of CMS and forward a ticket number to the police for them to use when requesting the data (e.g. ISP provided IP address, time of access, machine name/MAC/private LAN IP, etc.) This way, it's the authorities that have to request the information from Apple, as it should be.  A similar sort of system could be put in place by the phone companies as well, but using the IMEI.
A system such as what I described above would prevent legally acquired second hand phones from triggering police intervention, protect the suspect party's personal information until the police request it, and provide an efficient and effective way to recover stolen phones. It's astonishing that such a simple system doesn't already exist. Most of the key components are already in place.
Anyhow, I'm hoping the police recover the phone now that I've been able to identify the suspect but I have my doubts.
I really hate dishonest people.

Answer 1

Julian Wright wrote:
Takes about 5 minutes to setup.
As I explained, I only had the phone for a month and wasn't familiar with the new features for iCloud/iOS 5. I've never lost a phone before so never even thought to search for such a feature.
KiltedTim wrote:
They DO provide a tracking mechanism. YOU chose not to enable it.
Actually, I didn't choose anything. I wasn't aware of the feature at the time and, as I said above, I've never lost a phone before so never thought to look for such a feature.  The phone was setup by the agent at the store (I would have preferred to do it myself) and therefore iCloud services were disabled by default.  Furthermore, this clearly illustrates why an additional mechanism would be beneficial. It's also very easy for someone to disable Find My Phone - that's actually not a very good security mechanism at all.
wjosten wrote:
Ain't gonna ever happen...for the same reasons that GM won't help you find a stolen car...nor GE a stolen toaster or Samsung a stolen TV. These guys are NOT the police & don't want to have anything to do with this stuff. You can keep barking, but your bark will fall on deaf ears.
Many GM cars come with OnStar which can help locate or disable a stolen vehicle. A toaster and TV are not communications devices and are not as easily misplaced and stolen like a cell phone. They also aren't as readily trackable like a cell phone. Furthermore, you have home insurance to cover such a loss.
Why couldn't Apple offer a similar additional service as part of MobileMe or other such offering?  This is analogous to what GM does with OnStar.  GM ships their vehicles with the components necessary for OnStar (control module, etc) to work and OnStar provides the customer interface and implementation of the service.
With that said, if you actually read my post, I did locate my phone using a similar feature provided by the Find My Friends app.
Julian Wright wrote:
Apple clearly already added a few features to help a customer recover their phone
If you had read any of the documentation Apple provides about the "Find my iPhone" feature, you would see that Apple never states the word "stolen". They always state "lost". It will help you locate a lost iPhone.
As soon as it becomes a stolen phone, that is a criminal matter and therefore legally not Apple's job to help recover it.
Regardless, you hadn't set the feature up in a whole month, so it wouldn't have been any help to you anyway...
Since Apple doesn't offer a service to assist in the recovery of a stolen phone I wouldn't expect them to use the word "stolen" in any of their literature regarding locating services.
I completely agree that a stolen phone is a matter for the police but that doesn't mean Apple can't provide assistance to the authorities upon request; whether a court order is required or not is not the question here.  With regards to privacy legislation, again we are in agreement.  As a software developer in a field where privacy impact assessments and conformance to existing federal legislation is mandated, I know all too well what is allowed to be tracked and what is considered a violation of a privacy.  I also get to see first hand how inadequate some of the existing security systems and policies are.  I completely agree that Apple tracking someone's private IP and NIC MAC, machine name, etc might cross the line, they are already tracking serial numbers, search history, and external IP addresses when a person connects through iTunes.  This information can be subpoenaed by the authorties.  All I'm suggesting is to make this process easier.
I'm not suggesting that Apple start kicking down doors but they could easily work more closely with the authorities to offer enhanced recovery services for stolen phones, even if offered at a price.  Just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean that it can't or shouldn't be done.  Now that I know how easy it is for a phone to go missing, I'd gladly pay for the reassurance that some shady opportunist isn't able to benefit from my misfortune and hard work.  Judging by posts on the net about this subject, I know I'm not alone.
No great company has ever succeeded by maintaining status quo.  Apple (and cell providers) could really do something to help address a fairly large issue with minimal cost and risk.