TELUS WISE. How to safely dispose of your mobile devices. IPhone. By Claudia Salguero, TELUS Security

Transcription

1 TELUS WISE How to safely dispose of your mobile devices By Claudia Salguero, TELUS Security Technology is advancing at an amazing pace and new mobile devices with new features are coming out every month. Consequently, many people replace their smartphones or tablets almost every year. Have you ever thought about what happens to your old device when you dispose of it? More importantly, what happens to all of your private information? After using your devices every day for so long, it has accumulated a significant amount of very private data. Before you dispose of any mobile device, ensure that you wipe all information. IPhone If you still have your iphone operating system (ios) device Before you sell or give away your device, you should remove your personal information. You shouldn't manually delete your contacts, calendars, reminders, documents, photo streams, or any other icloud data while you're signed in to icloud with your Apple ID. This would delete your content from the icloud servers and any of your devices signed in to icloud. Follow these steps: 1. To unpair your Apple Watch and iphone: a. Keep your Apple Watch and iphone close together as you unpair them. b. Open the Watch app on your iphone. c. Tap the My Watch tab, tap Apple Watch, then tap Unpair Apple Watch. d. Tap again to confirm. You might need to enter your Apple ID password to disable Activation Lock. Your iphone will create a new backup of your Apple Watch before erasing all content and settings on your Apple Watch. You can use the backup to restore a new Apple Watch. After your Apple Watch unpairs, you'll see the Start Pairing message. Unpair without your iphone a. If you don't have your iphone, you can still erase all content and settings on your Apple Watch. On your Apple Watch, tap Settings > General > Reset > Erase all Content and Settings. This will reset your Apple Watch to the factory settings. 2. Back up your ios device. How to back up your devices using icloud or itunes If you back up your iphone, ipad, or ipod touch, you ll have a copy of your information to use if your device is ever replaced, lost, or damaged. Backups let you transfer data from your last device to your new one. Choose a backup method.

2 Before you get started, learn the difference between making backups with icloud and itunes (see below). Decide which method is best for you and follow the steps below. In case you ever need an alternative backup, you can make one in icloud and another in itunes. Make a backup using icloud a. Connect your device to a Wi-Fi network. b. In ios 8 or later, tap Settings > icloud > Backup. c. In ios 7 or earlier, tap Settings > icloud > Storage & Backup. d. Make sure that icloud Backup is turned on. e. Tap Back Up Now. Stay connected to your Wi-Fi network until the process completes. f. Make sure the backup finished by tapping Settings > icloud > Storage > Manage Storage, and then select your device. The backup you just made should appear in the details with the time and backup size. Make a backup using itunes a. Open itunes and connect your device to your computer. b. Save content that you downloaded from the itunes Store or App Store by clicking File > Devices > Transfer Purchases. Then wait for the transfer to finish. If you're using Windows and you don't see a File menu, hold down the Control and B keys. c. If you want to save Health and Activity data from your ios device or Apple Watch, you ll need to encrypt your backup: Select the box called Encrypt [device] backup and make a memorable password. d. Write down your password and store it somewhere safe, because there's no way to recover your itunes backups without this password. e. If you don't need to save your Health and Activity data, you can make a backup that isn't encrypted. Just click Back Up Now. If you're using Windows click File > Devices > Back up (if you don't see a File menu, hold down the Control and B keys). f. After the process ends, you can see if your backup finished successfully in itunes Preferences > Devices. You should see the name of your device with the date and time that itunes created the backup. If you encrypted your backup, you should also see beside the name of your device. 3. Tap Settings > icloud. Scroll down and tap Sign Out. In ios 7 or earlier, tap Delete Account. 4. Tap Sign Out again, then tap Delete from My iphone and enter your password. 5. Go back to Settings and tap General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. If you turned on Find My iphone, you might need to enter your Apple ID and password. 6. If asked for your device passcode or Restrictions passcode, enter it. Then tap Erase [device]. 7. Contact your carrier for help transferring service to a new owner. If you aren't using a SIM card with your device, you can contact them to get help transferring service to the new owner. If you no longer have your ios device If the steps above weren't completed and you no longer have your device, use these steps: 1. Ask the new owner to erase all content and settings using the above steps. 2. If you're using icloud and Find My iphone on the device, sign in to icloud.com/find, select the device, and click Erase. After the device has been erased, click Remove from Account.

3 3. If you can't follow either of the above steps, change your Apple ID password. This won't remove personal information that's stored on your old device, but it will prevent the new owner from deleting your information from icloud. 4. If you're switching to a non-apple phone, deregister imessage. 5. If you're using Apple Pay, you can remove your credit or debit cards at icloud.com. Choose Settings to see which devices are using Apple Pay, then click the device. Next to Apple Pay, click Remove. Blackberry smartphones What to do if your device is lost or stolen If you have BlackBerry Protect set up on your BlackBerry device, visit and sign in with your BlackBerry ID. From the BlackBerry Protect website, you can: Lock your device and change your device password Add a message to the home screen of your device View the location of your device on a map Delete all of the data on your device Flag your device as stolen If you don't have BlackBerry Protect set up on your device, contact your service provider or your administrator and report your device as lost or stolen. Your service provider or administrator has the ability to remotely lock your device and delete your data. If you suspect your device was stolen and you locate your device by using the BlackBerry Protect website, contact your local law enforcement agency to retrieve your device. Don't try to retrieve your device on your own. Wiping your device to delete your device data Before you switch to a new device or give away your current BlackBerry device, you should wipe it. A security wipe is designed to permanently delete all of the data on your device so it can't be recovered. This data includes accounts, downloaded apps, media files, documents, browser bookmarks, and settings. A security wipe is also designed to turn off BlackBerry Protect so that another person can set up the device. If you have the BlackBerry Protect anti-theft feature turned on, to complete the security wipe, you must enter your BlackBerry ID. Wipe your device Before you wipe your BlackBerry device, consider backing up your data on a computer. You can use BlackBerry Link to back up your device data. To download the latest version of BlackBerry Link to your computer, visit 1. On the home screen, swipe down from the top of the screen. 2. Tap image Settings > Security and Privacy > Security Wipe. 3. Do one of the following: Tap Delete Data. Type the password for your BlackBerry ID. Tap Verify. Type the word blackberry. Tap Delete Data. When the security wipe is completed, your device turns off automatically. To turn on your device, press the Power/Lock key. When the security wipe is completed, BlackBerry Protect is also turned off. To turn on BlackBerry Protect, tap image Settings > BlackBerry Protect. Tip: If you plan to give away or recycle your device, remember to also remove your SIM card and media card.

4 Android smartphones Encrypting the device prior to factory reset must be stressed and is the greatest differentiator between android and ios. Failure to encrypt will leave data in the android memory. Follow these steps: 1. Perform a backup Copy Data to PC (The Old Fashioned Way) The most basic thing you can do to protect your data is to copy it to your PC. Yes, it is definitely the most common and simple thing to do, but still it deserves a mention. Just connect your Android phone with your PC via USB data cable. Once connected, you will see a new Drive in My Computer with your phone s name; open it to access all your files. Copy all the files and paste in your PC. Use Google to backup some data and settings. Google lets you backup important data such as: Contacts Calendar App data Wi-Fi passwords Some phone settings IMPORTANT: the Google Backup will NOT backup other important data such as: photos SMS Videos Other similar data To start backing up, tap on phone Settings and from there tap on Backup and reset. In there, check both Back up my data and Automatic restore. After that, tap on Backup Account and add your Google account if you already have one or create a new one to add. Now, go back to Settings again and scroll down to Google under Account heading, and tap on it. Tap on your Google account and check all data which you would like to be synced. All your selected data will now be saved on Google servers and will be restored when you will use the same Google account on another android phone. 2. Encrypt your phone If you are preparing to sell or give away your mobile device, encrypt it before resetting it to its factory state. A full factory reset won t completely wipe out your personal data. Security Company Avast found that information you thought had already been wiped clean still remains on your Android device even after a factory reset. The company s researchers were able to extract photos, s, text messages, search

5 histories, personal identities, contacts and more from used Android phones they bought from ebay. Researchers at the University of Cambridge have also found that remnants of your deleted data can actually be used to log in to your accounts. When you encrypt all your phone data before factory resetting your phone, all your data will be scrambled. Plug in the phone s power charger. Initial encryption consumes a lot of battery power, especially if you already have a lot of existing data on your phone. You don t want to run out of juice in the middle of the encryption process or you could lose data. Go to Settings > Security. (The location may vary on some devices.) Tap on Screen Lock and select PIN or Password from the list. Designate a PIN or password. We recommend a password at least six characters long and using both numbers and letters. Scroll down to Encrypt phone/tablet, then tap Encrypt SD card to tick its checkbox. Tap the Next button and confirm your choice on the next screen by typing your PIN or password when prompted. Tap the Encrypt phone/tablet button to begin encryption. Initial encryption can take 30 minutes to about an hour, depending how much data you have. Your phone or tablet will reboot a few times during the process; this is normal. Just let the process complete. Once encryption is finished, you will be asked for your PIN or password to unlock your device. 3. Factory Reset Your Phone After encrypting your phone data, you can safely Factory reset your phone. However, it should be noted that all data will be deleted so if you would like to save any data make a backup of it first. To Factory Reset your phones go to: Settings and tap on Backup and reset. Scroll to the end, you will see the option of Factory data reset, tap on it and in the next page tap on Reset phone at the end of the screen. Your phone will restart and take about 2-5min to reset. Make sure you have enough battery to handle the process and battery is not pulled off during the process. This can lead to corrupting your data.