Recycling Considerations
Privacy is such an important issue in our world today. Did you know that if you trade in a cell phone, chances are that your personal information won’t be wiped clean before it is given to someone else? Many of us store PINs, passwords and other private information on our cell phones, especially if it is a cell phone/PDA. Here are a few things to check to ensure your privacy before you trade in your old cell phone.
- Make sure your old cell phone account has been deactivated. If, by some chance, your phone should find its way to a new owner, you don’t want them turning on the phone and you get charged for it.
- If your cell phone has a SIM card in it that stores information on it, remove the SIM card.
- Reset your cell phone. You may need your phone’s instruction manual to learn how to do this. You can also visit the Cell Phone Data Eraser page, http://www.wirelessrecycling.com/home/data_eraser/default.asp. You choose the brand and model number of your old cell phone, and it will show you the commands you need to use to erase the data from it. If you can’t readily tell what model cell phone you have, check underneath the battery. If this website doesn’t have information for your particular type of phone, go to the manufacturer’s website of your cell phone (or your cell phone service provider’s web site). Many times these sites will have downloadable copies of the instruction manuals.
- Once you have taken these steps to remove the information from your cell phone, test it out. Turn on your phone and look in the address book, call logs, or anywhere else to be sure that everything has, indeed, been removed from your phone. If you still have information on your phone, go back through steps 2 and 3. If all of the information is gone, you can now donate your phone knowing that you won’t be passing on private information.
- Phones can be recycled right here at SOP! Felix has a place in the stockroom for you to put old phones as well as used toner cartridges.
Last updated: 2/07/07