Editor’s note: Today’s post is written by Captain Bruno Pettinato of the São Paulo State Military Police (PMESP) in Brazil. PMESP chose Android Enterprise for its 80,000 agents in São Paulo and recently integrated Remote Lock functionality into its toolbox to help identify citizens’ stolen mobile devices and protect their personal data.
Cell phone theft is a frustrating crime for both citizens and officers in Brazil. In São Paulo, the Polícia Militar do Estado de São Paulo (PMESP) focuses on protecting the public, including managing security during major events like the São Paulo Carnival. To provide superior service to both the 80,000 agents in the field and the IT teams managing the fleet, PMESP chose Android Enterprise. We successfully deployed 10,000 Terminal Portátil de Dados (TPD) devices in police vehicles, equipping every PMESP agent in São Paulo with a dedicated and secure mobile tool.
The TPD is a fully managed essential device that hosts critical applications for criminal and automobile research, preparation of police reports and issuance of traffic citations. Android Enterprise enables centralized device and application management that simplifies operations for our IT teams. We can push essential applications such as Google Maps from our São Paulo headquarters via Urmobo’s Mobile Device Management (MDM), ensuring that all 10,000 TPD devices receive the update in just a few minutes. Zero-Touch’s ease of deployment, combined with Android’s commitment to regular security updates, ensures our agents always have the most secure and up-to-date tools available.
Android’s help when our citizens need it most
The success of Android Enterprise TPD devices has gone beyond basic functions. Officers quickly became so comfortable with the devices that they began pitching new ideas to their leaders on how to use Android features to improve productivity or help citizens. This is how we discovered the potential of Android Remote Lock.
Attendees often seek help from on-site PMESP agents when their phones are stolen or lost during large public events, such as the São Paulo Carnival. In the past, we could only help by filing a police report. Given the high usage of Android in Brazil, we realized that leveraging a built-in Android security feature could enable our agents to help victims secure their personal data and prevent its misuse by criminals.
We shared our challenge with Google’s Android Enterprise team in São Paulo. They helped us understand how to leverage remote locking on our 10,000 TPD devices, a critical solution due to high Android usage in Brazil. We are now able to better serve phone theft victims with Android’s built-in security.
Transforming agent information into an anti-theft solution
If the police are alerted to a stolen device, they can access the Remote Lock Web Pagewhich is part of Android Find Hub, using their TPDs. An officer enters the citizen’s phone number into Find Hub, and that’s it: the device’s screen is locked, preventing anyone else from accessing or misusing the phone’s personal data.
Better yet, we can now immediately track the location of the stolen device. With the victim’s permission, we log them into their account using Find Hub guest mode on TPDs to begin tracking. From the start of tracking, we can report movements via GPS and enable device tracking to recover the device and arrest the criminal, providing an even better service to our citizens.
Positive feedback from officers and citizens
The state of São Paulo began using remote locking in June 2025. Since then, the functionality has been used by PMESP officers more than 5,000 times. More, a video that we created that shows citizens how to activate the remote locking feature has been viewed over a million times.
We hear every day in our offices that help citizens with the remote lock feature that they can see the relief on victims’ faces when they realize that their personal data will be safe from criminals. Based on its ease of use and warm reception by our community, we believe this solution can be replicated by police departments around the world and invite other organizations to experience the power of always-on Android security by contact a partner.
