New UK law lets police enter homes to retrieve stolen phones
Key Points
- UK police can now enter homes without a warrant to recover stolen phones tracked via Find My Device, Find My iPhone or GPS, under the Crime and Policing Act 2026 in force from 29 April.
- Entry must be authorised at Inspector rank and applies when obtaining a court warrant is not reasonably practicable; existing PACE Code B safeguards still apply.
- The change targets the "golden hour" between theft and resale, when stolen phones tracked to specific addresses are typically moved, sold or factory-reset within hours.
- London phone theft fell 12.3% to 71,391 offences in 2025 after Met Operation Reckoning targeted gangs exporting up to 40,000 devices to China and Hong Kong.
- Samsung is the only major handset maker to publicly endorse the new powers; Apple and Google have faced parliamentary criticism over their response to UK phone theft.
UK police can now enter homes without a warrant to recover stolen phones tracked through Find My Device or Find My iPhone, under measures that became law on Wednesday (29 April).
The new powers, contained in the Crime and Policing Act 2026, let officers enter and search any property where a stolen item has been electronically geolocated, provided obtaining a court warrant is not reasonably practicable.
Tracking signals from Find My Device, Find My iPhone, Bluetooth, wifi access points, mobile network triangulation, or GPS trackers fitted to vehicles and bags all count as valid grounds.
Entry must be authorised by an officer of at least Inspector rank, and existing safeguards on the conduct of searches still apply.
Until 29 April, providing police with a live-tracked location of a stolen device often led nowhere because officers needed a magistrate’s warrant before entering the address, a process that routinely outlasted the window in which the phone remained at that location.
Under the new powers, a victim sharing a Find My Device or Find My iPhone location can trigger immediate entry rather than a paperwork process.
Recovery is a problem
The scale of the problem behind the change is significant. Mobile phone theft offences in London fell from 81,365 in 2024 to 71,391 in 2025, according to Metropolitan Police figures released in February 2026, a 12.3% drop driven by Operation Reckoning.
The same operation has dismantled criminal networks responsible for shipping up to 40,000 stolen UK phones to China and Hong Kong.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced an additional £4.5 million in his February 2026 Budget to fund a dedicated phone theft Command Cell in the West End.
But Recovery rates have remained the central frustration for victims.
City of London Police data shows fewer than half of more than 1,000 phones recovered over the previous two years were returned to their owners because the force could not identify them.
Met Commissioner Mark Rowley said in February 2026 that policing alone cannot solve the problem and called on manufacturers to do more to prevent stolen phones from being reset, reused or resold.
Samsung is the only major handset maker to publicly endorse the new powers.
A Samsung spokesperson said the company is “committed to continuing to work closely with both the Home Office and Met Police on tackling the issue of phone theft in the UK” and is “supportive of the new phone theft search measures included in the Crime and Policing Act.”
The endorsement places Samsung at odds with Apple and Google, which have so far focused their UK statements on existing on-device protections rather than backing law enforcement powers.
As a result, Apple and Google have faced sustained parliamentary criticism.
At a Science, Innovation and Technology Committee session in June 2025, Apple senior regulatory director Gary Davis told MPs the company does not profit from theft after Conservative MP Kit Malthouse suggested a financial incentive existed.
Committee chair Dame Chi Onwurah said it was clear from the mood of the committee that neither Google nor Apple had a roadmap for effective phone protection. Liberal Democrat MP Martin Wrigley told both companies they owed it to customers to act immediately.
Good news for Brits
The new powers target what police call the “golden hour” between theft and resale.
Stolen phones tracked to specific addresses are typically moved on, sold to handlers, or factory-reset within hours, with the GSMA blacklist that disables stolen handsets in the UK not recognised by overseas networks where most exported devices end up.
Faster entry by police is intended to close that window before devices leave the country.
The longer-term question is whether warrantless entry will materially shift recovery rates.
Met data shows the bulk of stolen London phones leave the UK within days, often through container shipments to East Asia, a route the new powers do nothing to disrupt.
For owners outside London, the change matters most in the immediate aftermath of a theft, when a tracked location is still live, and the phone has not yet been moved or wiped.
