A sad reflection of the world we live in is that many people are too quick to abdicate personal responsibility and instead defer to it to other people whether they be experts at it or simply someone else so you don’t have to do it. This is seen in all aspects of life where any form of personal decision making has to take place, but people must understand that this is very risky. So many people, wanting to earn a bit of money and recycle, hand over their phone willy nilly without a second thought as to what they might have left on the phone.

By assuming that all is well and that no further commitment is required on their part they are potentially leaving themselves wide open to abuse of all sorts and in particular, the risk of having their personal details stolen and abused by criminals. Imagine for a moment, a personal safe. It contains all your bank details, personal contacts etc. Only you have access to that safe, it is yours.

Now what if you sold that safe, but forgot to take all your stuff out of it? By a combination of observation, trial and error and a bit of luck, they will be able to gain access to the safe, and all your personal data.

This is precisely how a so called “cookie” stored on your old mobile phone operates, as whenever you log into a website or visit it you will acquire a cookie. Even after you leave it, the cookies will remain in your internet history part of your phone. Before recycling your mobile phone, please make sure that you remove all traces of personal, sensitive information on your phone including your internet browsing history and internet files in order to protect yourself.

Once you hand over your phone, you will have no way of knowing just who will have access to it or indeed, what their intentions are with it and so it is imperative that you plan for this eventuality. Once you have been paid, the phone and all that is on it is the property of the mobile phone recycling company. You have been warned!