Are you thinking of selling your smartphone? Or have you already sold it?
Chances are your data might still be there. Those contacts, text messages, Facebook documents, email, and pictures might be there, even if you have wiped the memory clean.
You might ask how we know this?
Well, a new study by computer researchers at the University of Cambridge shows that”Factory reset” doesn’t erase everything on your phone.
There is a huge market of used smartphone and the more users, the bigger the problem it is going to be. The research was done on 21 different smartphones from different companies which concluded that the phone still had some data of the owner even after the factory reset. In every case, they were able to recover text messages, Google account credentials and conversations on messaging apps.
And few things related to social media like facebook and twitter remained. And the mail’s were present 80% of the time. There were times when even the data about videos an pictures were not deleted.
The only phone performing better among other phones was Nexus 4. Every phone had their unique issues. Some didn’t wipe the internal SD card, and some didn’t rub other details.
If you’re determined to sell your old phone, there’s no way to be sure your data is completely gone. The phones are vulnerable as they would still contain your data even after the factory reset.
Another approach to be safe is encrypting everything on your phone, but then you are not going to be able to sell it. If you don’t want your cellphone instead smash it or give it to someone you trust.
However, saving your data to the drive and Dropbox is suitable for being safe with your data as you can separate those from your phone anytime you like.