Mobile phone recycling companies urged to ensure customer privacy
Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - 10:56:22
The debate over data security in the mobile phone recycling market has reared its head again this month, after a Channel 4 investigation revealed how easy it is for malicious third parties to restore private information from an old phone that they have bought second hand.
Software which is available online means that data which has been deleted from a handset can quickly be restored and made accessible once more, even if the user was certain that they had done all they could to scrub all the traces of their activities from a phone they are going to resell or recycle.
The problem is compounded by the fact that recycling companies operating in the UK and Europe are no longer required by EU regulations to take responsibility for fully deleting this data. Instead, this is something that customers have to do themselves, although consumer rights campaigners and news organisations are calling for recycling organisations to do more to ensure people are protected.
According to Business Insider, there are many ways for hackers to retrieve personal data from old phones and this can then be used for fraudulent purposes, resulting in identity theft and other issues for innocent users.
There are programs which are designed to make data irretrievable after it has been deleted, although for many consumers, actually using them will be tricky, which is why people are calling for the responsibility for protection to be restored at the recycler?s side of the bargain.
Some of the best mobile phone recycling firms will indeed promise to permanently delete private data, whether or not regulations require them to. Consumers should therefore seek out reputable companies so that they can get peace of mind when they sell their phone online in the coming year.
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