Everybody loves to upgrade their smartphone. Smartphones are replaced every 2 to 3 years. This love affair results in approximately 5.3 billion smartphones being discarded globally. If we lined up 5.3 billion smartphones end to end, they would stretch around the Earth approximately 120 times! Unfortunately, most of these phones end up in landfills or incinerators instead of properly recycled. In this blog, I offer tips on wiping your data off the smartphone next time you change Android phones.
Personal data left on discarded smartphones can lead to fraudulent credit card transactions, unauthorized account access, and identity theft. Hackers can exploit this information to impersonate you or gain unauthorized access to your accounts. If you throw away your old smartphone, there’s no telling who might be able to get their hands on your hardware—and, by extension, your data. That is why you must take the following steps to wipe all of your personal data from your retired smartphone.
Who can see your personal info
Vendor software does not guarantee complete memory sanitation, and third-party products primarily focus on encryption. In any case, it’s challenging to ensure that a device has been securely “zeroed out.”
The recommended approach, although not foolproof, involves performing a factory reset on your smartphone. A factory reset will erase data and restore the device to its factory settings.
The specific steps will vary depending on the manufacturer of your device. This approach will, in all likelihood, make it extremely difficult for anyone without access to expensive, specialized hardware to recover any data that had been stored on the smartphone.
Disposing of an Android smartphone
Backup your data: Before performing a factory reset on your Android phone, ensure all important data is backed up. Android 8.1 or later automatically backs up your text messages, but not your call log. To manually back up your Android:
- Go to “Settings.”
- Click “Google” > “Backup.”
- Tap “Back up now.”
Sync your apps with your Google account. Google apps usually sync automatically, but you can also sync them manually. Note that syncing non-Google apps requires checking individual app settings and syncing them manually.
- Go to “Settings.”
- Tap “About phone” > “Account sync.”
- Tap “More” > “Sync now.”
Next, back up your Google Photos:
- Open the Google Photos app.
- Sign in.
- Tap your profile icon in the top right corner.
- Tap “Settings” > “Backup.”
- Toggle “Backup” on.
Clean up your apps:
Now, delete saved passwords from your browsers and apps:
- Unsync them from associated accounts.
- Remove your SIM card and any external storage.
- Log out of your Google account.
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- Go to “Settings” > “Users and Accounts” and, select your account.
- Remove any payment cards associated with your Android phone:
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- Open the Google Play Store app.
- Tap “Menu” > “Payment methods” > “More payment settings.”
- Sign in to pay.google.com if needed.
- Choose the payment method you want to remove and tap “Remove.”
Encrypt your smartphone:
Once you’ve finished cleaning up your apps, consider encrypting your phone. Encryption ensures that even if the new owner of your device tries to restore all your data, they won’t be able to access it. The steps for carrying out a factory reset vary slightly depending on the device manufacturer. These general steps should help you locate the specific options on your device.
- Tap “Reset options.”
- Choose “Erase all data (factory reset).”
- Tap “Reset phone.”
- Tap “Erase everything.” Your phone will be returned to the same state as when you purchased it.
You can then proceed with encrypting your phone.
- Go to “Settings” > “System.”
- Go to “Settings, Security & location.”
- Tap “Encryption & credentials.”
- Tap “Encrypt phone.”
Factory reset smartphone
You are almost done. The final task is to factory reset the smartphone. A factory reset will remove most of the data from your device before selling it. To perform a factory reset:
- Go to “Reset options” > “Erase all data (factory reset).”
- Tap “Erase everything.”
It’s important to note that a factory reset doesn’t guarantee complete data removal. While Android loses track of the data’s location, it might still be recoverable with specialized techniques. Moreover, Android Smartphones can’t overwrite this data.
Remove accounts: Lastly, make sure to remove your Google account and any other accounts linked to the device:
Log in to your Google account.- Head to the “Recently Used Devices” section.
- Find the phone you are getting rid of, click on it, and then tap “Remove.”
Sign out of apps that store your login details, like Facebook and Gmail, and make sure they don’t retain these details.
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If the device is going to be disposed of, you should take it to an electronic recycler or donate it to an organization that can repurpose it, like the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Protect your privacy by securely wiping your old smartphone before disposal. Back up data, remove accounts, encrypt, and factory reset the device. Recycle responsibly.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT for a while and has blogged from the Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that has caught my attention since 2005. You can follow me on Facebook or Mastodon. Email the Bach Seat here.
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