If you recently tried to sell your old Android phone we can bet that after reading this you might want to find a way to get it back!
A new study done by computer researchers at the University of Cambridge reveals that even if you hit the “factory reset” which is supposed to wipe the enter phone clean of its data, there is a chance that your text messages, emails, pictures and Facebook key are still in there.
Yeah so if you took a naughty picture you might want to think twice about the next person you give youre Android to!
There is a reported 630 million android phones being used in the world so this poses a huge problem!
According to the NY Post,
“Researchers tested 21 phones made by Google(GOOGL, Tech30), HTC, LG, Motorola (MSI) and Samsung (SSNLF). In every case, they were able to recover text messages, Google account credentials and conversations on messaging apps. A few emails remained on the device 80% of the time. Also, the special app “tokens” that let you access your Facebook (FB, Tech30) and other social media accounts remained on the device.”
The study even goes on to show that at times Android doesn’t even fully wipe part of your phone where it stores pictures and videos.
One devices obviously affected is the HTC One, which according to NY Post , it doesnt wipe its internal SD card (where pictures are stored) by erasing it through the phone’s “settings” section, instead it’s done through the recovery section, even though the manual says do it by the settings. Other phones affected are the HTC Sensation XE, Motorola Razr I, Samsung Galaxy S, Samsung Galaxy S2, Samsung Galaxy S Plus and others. Researchers said the Google Nexus 4 performed the best even though it still had issues.
Researchers told CNNMoney, “Part of the blame lies with Google, which makes the Android software that runs all these phones. But the phone makers are also at fault, because of bad design and terribly slow upgrades and software updates.”
So in other words you can try to manually delete the thousands of selfies you’ve probably taken in your lifetime but they will still linger around to haunt the next person you hand it off to. The best bet is to just destroy it ! Let’s chat below!
Sources Sited: NY Post
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