Why doesn’t Apple allow stolen iPhones to be blocked by serial number?

Find My is great, but it doesn’t cover cases where an iPhone is stolen while Find My is deactivated. Why would you need to deactivate it? Well, to sell it. If the iPhone is physically stolen during the sale—snatched from your hands, purchased with counterfeit money, or taken through any of dozens of other methods—there’s no way to disable it remotely. There’s a huge market, so a huge portion of theft cases remains unaddressed.

It’s even more frustrating knowing that Apple 100% can do something about this.

The process, of course, shouldn’t be strightforward—otherwise, someone else could easily block your iPhone.

But if I bought an iPhone at an Apple Store in a first-world country and, when it was stolen, I did the right thing and went to the police, I should absolutely have the ability to remotely block it. It’s my iPhone, after all.

Why doesn’t Apple create a form where it’s mandatory to attach a police report and the original invoice from the Apple Store? You submit the form, Apple verifies that the buyer’s name on the invoice matches the victim’s name on the report, that the purchase details align with the Apple Store database — and blocks the iPhone from activation. Surely when an iPhone is activated, its serial number is transmitted—if the form is validly submitted, Apple’s servers could deny activation.

Or, if not outright blocking the phone, at least let the original owner see the phone’s location on a map, as with Find My. They could then contact local police and politely ask the new owner to return it. Maybe there are privacy complications involved, but even so, those complications would apply only to the map solution—not the blocking one.

So, why, Apple?

P.S. These forums tend to address complex technical questions with very generic answers. I encourage participation in this discussion only if you’ve thoroughly understood the terms and are providing information that adds to what is already outlined. Thank you.