I was at a Navman launch today when the subject of rampant GPS theft came up.

It always does at such occasions these days, for good reason.

Navman’s Sydney-based ANZ marketing director, Wendy Hammond, volunteered that there’s a huge car park in Parramatta – for 5000 cars, apparently – where 80 GPS systems a month are being pinched out of vehicles. (She didn’t say which, but a quick search finds the Parramatta Sun reporting a 340% increase in car park theft at the massive Westfield Parramatta since 2005).

Earlier, at a TomTom press launch, I was practically the only journalist without a story about a sat-nav system being stolen.

My sister-in-law had her car’s Navman system stolen twice within six months. Within, 12 months, a third attempt had been made. She’d taken her GPS unit inside, but seeing the empty stalk on the dashboard, an opportunist had stoved in the driver-side window on the off-chance Natalie’s Navman had been stashed in the glove box. Now, she won’t have a GPS system in her car. Neither would I.

Hammond pointed out that a Navman unit’s stalk can be detached with the simple press of a button, which detaches with sucker on the windshield in a couple of seconds without you having to do a two-elbow yank.

And, without giving too much away about Navman’s latest product (which is still under embargo, see our Technology section Monday), it’s slimmer and sleeker than ever before, and easy to slip into your pocket (the stalk, too, if you’ve got, um, cargo pants).

It’s doable, if a bit of a hassle. And you do have to stick to the routine religiously. A colleague pulled over to run into a dairy. He came out two minutes later, and his car window was smashed and his Navman gone.

Worse – at least I give the guy points for honesty – Navman ANZ General Manager Marcus Fry says ideally you should not just pocket your GPS and detach the windshield stalk, but clean the inside of the windshield too. Unless you give it a wipe, the canny GPS thief will see those tell-tale traces of the sucker marks.

That is definitely starting to sound too hard.

Like everybody in the GPS game, Navman is keenly aware of the theft problem, and has a new security system incorporated into its latest product. Stay tuned for details Monday ...