How to Stop Relay and Keyless Vehicle Theft in 2026
Timi
Around 130,000 vehicles were stolen in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics. Relay attacks account for roughly 70 percent of those thefts according to the ABI, and around 60 percent in London specifically.
The good news is that the theft can be stopped. The bad news is that a GPS tracker alone does not stop it.
How relay attacks work
A relay attack needs two people and kit that costs under £50. One stands near your front door, close to where your keys sit. The other stands next to your vehicle.
The first device amplifies and extends your key fob’s signal, which is always broadcasting even when the fob is sitting in a bowl on the hallway table. The second device receives that signal at the car. The vehicle thinks the key is next to it and unlocks. The engine starts. The whole sequence takes under 60 seconds. No windows are smashed. No alarms go off.
A Home Office analysis from July 2025 found that over 27 percent of UK vehicles have keyless entry that is vulnerable to relay attacks. The most targeted models include the Ford Fiesta, VW Golf, Ford Focus, Range Rover and Land Rover variants, and several Hyundai and Kia models.
Why a tracker alone is not enough
A GPS tracker tells you where your vehicle is after it has been stolen. That is useful, but recovery rates for stolen UK vehicles range from around 13 to 40 percent depending on the source. Most stolen vehicles do not come back.
Trackers can also be jammed. A signal blocker placed near the device cuts its transmission, and the vehicle disappears from your map. Some professional theft rings use jammers as standard.
Layered security beats any single device. A tracker without an immobiliser is one layer. A ghost immobiliser without a tracker is another. Both together, combined with geofencing alerts, are substantially harder to defeat.
What actually stops a relay attack
A relay attack gets a thief inside the vehicle and can start it, if there is nothing preventing the start sequence.
A covert ghost immobiliser blocks the start sequence at a point in the vehicle’s electronics that is not visible or accessible without knowing where to look. The thief has the signal relayed correctly, the car unlocks, but it will not start unless the correct additional steps are completed, such as a PIN sequence or a driver ID tag being present.
The relay attack got them into the car. The ghost immobiliser stops them going anywhere in it.
Driver ID tags extend this logic. Only a driver carrying the correct tag can start the vehicle. If the tag is not present, the engine does not start. This covers situations beyond relay attacks, including cloned keys and OBD port programming.
Geofencing alerts flag movement outside expected hours or locations. If a vehicle moves at 3am or leaves an approved site, you know immediately. Combined with one-click remote immobilisation, you can stop a vehicle in transit.
The new law
The Crime and Policing Act 2026 makes it illegal to possess or supply the signal-blocking and relay devices used in keyless vehicle theft. That raises the risk for thieves, but it does not remove the method. Enforcement of possession is difficult, and the kit remains widely available.
The practical answer is making your vehicles a harder target than the one next to them.
UK insurers have noticed
UK insurers paid out more than £1.2 billion on vehicle theft claims in 2024, according to the ABI. That figure is influencing underwriting decisions. Vehicles with ghost immobilisers and tracking are treated differently at renewal than those with factory security alone.
If you run a taxi, PCO, rental or commercial fleet, the case for layered security is straightforward: the cost of a ghost immobiliser is a fraction of the excess on a single theft claim, and a fraction of the cost of replacing a vehicle that does not come back.
See how Traknova’s ghost immobiliser and tracking work together
Find out about keyless protection and driver ID for your fleet