Planning to sell your old phone? Research says your phone won’t totally erase data. Here is what you should do
A study by computer scholars at the University of Cambridge revealed shocking findings that for a while shock the mobile phone recycling industry.
The findings said that Android phones do not clear data even if you totally delete all corners of the phone. The researchers on testing several Samsung phones such as Samsung galaxy s and s2, HTC phones and the Motorola they found that data such as images, emails, text messages, Facebook conversations and Gmail data were recoverable on the devices even after deletion.
They also discovered that more than 640 million phones are at risk of this problem.
3 years since the news broke and tech gurus have been swimming their heads with ideas on how to help people totally empty their phones of data before selling them.
The efforts to find ways to rid phones of data are worth the efforts because more than one million mobile phones are recycled every month in the UK alone.
Mobile phone recycling companies like Rapid phone buyer offer their customers with help to safely delete their devices by using these tips.
Here are 4 tried and tested tips that will clear your phone of data before you can hand it over for sale.
Delete the recovery
Part of the reason why your data remains on your phone after deleting is that when you erase, your phone simply finds new space within the phone to store the data. That is the same reason why data recovery programs can recover deleted files.
So, delete your recovery and reset it.
Just to be sure, you can repeat this process 2-3 times and then reset your phone.
Although this is not necessary, you might want to fill in your memory with new data to linger in there so that the new phone user doesn’t pay attention to digging deep into the phone.
Block access to your Google accounts
This applies only to Google accounts such as Gmail, Google plus and all the Google related services. Go to the Google dashboard and head to the bottom of the page where there are data security settings.
Then block access of your phone to google. This will help you protect your email, search history, maps, images and every other activity.
And after you reset your phone, make sure you do not log into your Google account again.
Encrypt it
The last option you have on your list is to encrypt your phone. But this means that your phone won’t be used by anyone else which is fine because mobile phone recycling companies don’t only buy old phones to re-sell them. They sometimes buy them to reprocess the parts and re-use them for other purposes.
So, if you are going to encrypt your phone, call up a recycling company and let them know you want to encrypt your phone so that they categorize your device as not for sale.
Install a new version of android
Once you are done clearing your phone, it is wise to install a new version of Android. This makes your phone a clean fresh data free device.
If you are having trouble with any of these processes, call a trusted mobile phone company to help you.
If you don’t want to go through all this, you can crash your phone. But why should you crash it if you can earn some bucks from it? And why not give someone out there a chance to enjoy their dream phone for less?
How about iPhones?
iPhone can also retain data on the phone after deleting but they are not as stubborn as androids.
Even better is that when you call up a company that deals in iPhones and say, “I want to sell my iPhone 7 for cash” chances are that they will guide you on what to do. But there isn’t much of a problem riding data from an iPhone. Just like androids, you will need to delete your accounts. Maybe what is important about the iPhone is that you need to unpair any app or device connected to the phone. If you don’t, the new user will have trouble using the phone. To unpair apple watch for instance, go to the app-apple watch and head to settings then follow the quick instructions which will lead you to a button displaying, “unpair apple watch”
The rest of the process like moving Service to the new phone owner can be done by the recycling company.
But just in case you won’t be selling through a mobile phone company or will be giving out your phone to a friend or loved one, clearing it is as simple as this 1 quick step.
- Go to settings and click on general options and then tap on reset and finally hit the button that has, “Delete all content and settings”
You can confirm that your phone is cleared and not recoverable by using a testing app.
