Will new Policing Bill be a turning point for trackers and fighting bike crime?

Earlier this year, the UK government revealed plans for its Crime and Policing Bill, potentially paving the way for technology to effectively fight bike crime through tracker and geolocation tech.

The Bill, now making its way through Parliament and beginning its journey to become law, contains a measure pertinent to the persistent blight of bike crime. Namely, giving police power to act on data from tracking devices, allowing them to search properties where stolen items have been electronically geolocated.

This is potentially a gamechanging point – until now, police had to have a warrant in addition to electronic geolocation data pinpointing a stolen phone – or bike – which in practice seldom happened, anecdotal reports indicate. That heavily undermined the effectiveness of bike trackers, whether fitted during the production process or via aftermarket trackers sold separately.

With this point set to change, there’s considerable potential for bike trackers to become a genuine obstacle to crime, effectively enabling law enforcers to use bike tracker data. At this point we stress the law has not yet come into force and has to jump through legislative hoops in Parliament before it become enshrined.

If passed, the Bill will create a new targeted power for the police to enter premises to search for and seize electronically tracked stolen goods, ranging from mobile phones to stolen vehicles and agricultural machinery.

The government said: “Under the new warrantless powers of entry, officers will be able to enter premises identified by electronic mapping if stolen items are believed to be there and it is not practicable to obtain a warrant from a court. This can be done through a ‘find my phone’ app, wifi access points, Bluetooth, mobile network technology or tracking devices attached to any other possession or vehicle.

“It will support the police to act swiftly in the ‘golden hour’ of investigations, which is particularly crucial for investigations into theft, helping to provide swifter seizures of stolen property and providing a better service to victims.”

It’s difficult to fully assess the level of bike theft, with many such crimes thought to go unreported. However, it is CIN’s understanding that previous governments expect the industry to not “wash its hands” of bike theft and participate in tackling it. Therefore, given the new legislation, can we expect an influx of bike trackers on bikes destined for UK shores?

Stats from Novuna Personal Finance reckons 70% of cyclists have been affected by bike crime. £2.4 billion is the total estimated cost of stolen bikes across the UK. 51% of thefts occur in public places, 30% at home. Novuna goes on to reveal that 46% of stolen bikes were locked at the time of theft – an lock upselling opportunity at least – and 59% of victims bought a new bike outright, with “many considering finance options”.

Retail crime and dangerous vehicles

The Bill also has additional relevance to the bike trade and indeed any retail workers. It will introduce a new offence of assaulting a retail worker. And it will remove the legislation which makes shop theft of and below £200 a summary-only offence. Statistics from the BRC revealed “spiralling” retail crime rates – now numbers circa 2,000 crimes a day in UK shops.

Also of note, the Bill will give police the power to seize vehicles that cause havoc to communities: “Allowing them to deal with the scourge of off-road bikes in public parks and dangerous e-scooters on pavements.”