After getting a new phone during the New Year, what should I do with the data on my old phone?

After buying a new phone during the Spring Festival, the old phone will be idle. Is it reliable to send the old phone for recycling? How to deal with the data of the old phone?

1. What information may be leaked by old mobile phones?

If the information on the old phone is not completely erased, the following information may be easily leaked:

① Personal information: It is easy to leak key information such as personal name, ID number, mobile phone number, etc., which are the information that criminals are most concerned about. Once the data is successfully recovered, the consequences will be disastrous.

② Photos and videos: Although you may have deleted the photos and videos in your old phone, criminals may use technical means to restore the deleted content information to steal the owner’s personal information. They may also forge fraudulent information and blackmail you.

③ Third-party payment information: If an old mobile phone falls into the hands of criminals, they may use the identity information contained in the phone to reset bank card or other payment passwords, thereby stealing the owner’s money.

④ Social platform account information: After recovering the owner’s data, criminals can use this information to log into the owner’s social account, view the owner’s private information, and possibly use this information to carry out illegal activities.

2. Delete the APP login device

Many apps will record commonly used login devices when logging in. After discarding the old phone, be sure to log out of each app and delete the previous login device when logging in to the app on the new phone to prevent others from logging in later.

Taking WeChat APP as an example, click [Me] - [Settings] - [Account and Security] - [Login Device Management] - [Edit] to delete the records.

3. Completely delete all data

Even if you restore your old phone to factory settings, data may still be recovered by others through technical means. The correct way is to restore your old phone to factory settings, then store some useless content, such as movies, pictures, etc. to fill up the storage space, and then restore it to factory settings. Repeat this several times, and these useless contents will overwrite the personal information previously stored in the phone. You can also go to a regular old phone recycling agency, repair center, etc., and ask professionals to completely delete the data on the old phone.

Have you remembered these methods of dealing with data in old mobile phones?