If you’re planning to get rid of an old phone or maybe an old laptop, Consumer Reports warns you need to do one thing you may not have considered -- or you could be setting yourself up for identity theft.
Just deleting files and logging out is not enough, according to Consumer Reports. Anything that might be stored locally on a device, like photos, videos, or any personal documents, may still be on there if the only thing you’ve done is log out of different accounts.
First, you need to back things up using an external drive or cloud-based service. Then search online for specific factory reset directions for your device. It can be done on laptops, tablets, smartphones, wearable tech, and more.
Even after a factory reset, a very determined hacker could still access your old files. Although that’s very unlikely, you have other options that are more permanent, though it could decrease the value of your tech.
“Say, you’re selling a laptop on eBay or something like that. You could just physically remove the hard drive so that when you sell it or give it to someone else your data that was on the computer is no longer there because the hard drive is no longer there,” explained Consumer Reports Tech Editor Nicholas De Leon.
More extreme measures include destroying the hard drive or even destroying, then recycling, the device itself.
De Leon says there are other devices that also need a factory reset.
“TVs, gaming consoles, streaming devices like Roku, things like that. These all have your data on there, so you want to make sure to get rid of it before passing it onto the next person,” De Leon said.
Also, Consumer Reports says it’s important to remove any external storage in your devices, like microSD cards. And for smartphones and tablets with cellular, you’ll also want to find and remove the SIM card. If you don’t have the tool to remove it that came with your device, you can use a paper clip instead.