While many people now own smartphones since they have become cheaper in recent years, the devices are also used by the criminal community to organise their crimes, but the Police in London are set to use new software to help them crack smartphones.

According to an article over at Techradar the Metropolitan Police is set to introduce new forensic software, which will let officers extract vital information from a suspect’s mobile device in a matter of minutes. The software from Aesco can quickly obtain information on calls, emails, and messaging from a handset, even if the SIM card is locked. This will mean that officers will no longer have to send a handset off to the crime lab for weeks at a time to retrieve such information.

The software is set to be rolled out across several London boroughs, and it will be mainly used to get evidence on burglaries and petty crimes to help gain convictions in court. It is hoped the software will help the police to solve crimes quicker, and it will also mean that suspects won’t be left without their mobile phones for weeks on end, but many won’t be concerned about that.

While the new software can break locked smartphones by getting past the SIM unlock code, it is thought it will struggle getting access to the BlackBerry platform. It was this platform that was used by many that took part in last summer’s London riots that quickly spread to other parts of the UK, and the police will be keen to crack those handsets.

Chief executive of the Radio Tactics company that built the software, Andy Gill, said that the BlackBerry platform was “an interesting challenge”, and added that they are built from scratch to be secure, which isn’t the case for some other devices.