UK Home Secretary John Reid want Apple to help fight street crime by developing technologies for this in its iPod music players.
He plans to approach Apple (and Sony) to enlist their help in developing solutions to help end the scourge of iPod muggings, he said, speaking on BBC show, Sunday AM.
It"s not an unusual move: mobile phone manufacturers already hold "close working relationships" with the Home Office to combat this, as reported by Reuters.
The UK government is drawing up a shortlist of MP3 player makers who it hopes to convince to take part in an anti-crime summit.
Street robberies climbed 8 per cent during the last 13 weeks of 2006, the report observes.