An interesting article in the Metro newspaper today.
Apparently nearly 50% of people who have purchase or received recycled phone have contacted the original owner because of details left on the phone.
In this day and age I am amazed how many people still don't understan
d why it is so important to factory reset a phone prior to giving it away. Current smartphones hold some dangerous amount of personal information on it. And then you have all the saved passwords and cookies for the likes if Facebook, Twitter, email accounts, etc.
A lot of it is enough to assist with ID theft.
Although the onus is with the owner to delete all his details before giving his phone, the European Data Protection Directive makes it clear that the company doing the recycling should also delete all the data off the phone.
Whatever the case this is a timely reminder to erase all information and ensure you actually know how to delete the data in the first place.
Many smart phones also offer the ability to remote erase a phone or fully encrypt all user data which should be considered too inadition to the basic pin protection.
You have been warned!
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