The Minister for Crime Prevention in the United Kingdom, Alan Campbell has stated that the mobile phone industry has a social and corporate responsibility to tackle crime, as the UK government calls on the mobile phone industry to do more to protect mobile phone owners from theft, reports the BBC.

According to figures roughly two percent of British mobile phone owners have reported suffering from theft of their mobile handset in the last year, although apparently when it comes to teenagers that percentage triples.

Campbell has said that mobile phone firms do have a responsibility that goes beyond profits they make from their products; they have a social and corporate responsibility to fight crime, and likened mobile phone theft to that of car theft.

The figures suggest that some 228 mobile phones are reported as stolen in the United Kingdom every hour, and the governmental call comes as the Home Office unveiled the winning designs in a crime prevention contest which was directed at making mobile phone less attractive to thieves, and said winning designs will be shown at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona next week.