When you get a new phone and before you trade in your old one, make sure you don’t trade in all your personal information, too. Watch this video to see the steps to better protect yourself.
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Your phone has a lot of personal information stored in its memory; photos, contacts, email and text messages, and more. When you are ready to get a new phone, here are some simple steps to follow to remove that personal information before you turn in the phone.
- Back up the information. Move the items you want to keep or will want to transfer to your new phone to a computer or the cloud. That way you won’t have to worry about losing files in the phone transfer.
- Wipe the phone memory. Depending on your phone, the steps and language may be a little different. But each phone has instructions to “reset” to the maker’s original settings. Following those instructions should allow you to clear nearly all the data in your phone’s memory.
- Remove the SIM or SD card. Take out the card and do not turn it in when you turn in the phone. If you don’t know how to do that, check AT&T online support for steps to complete.
- Double-check. Go back and check to make sure contacts, downloads, texts, emails, photos, and other folders and files are empty. Make sure one last time that all your data is gone and that you are not leaving any personal information on the phone.
In addition, if you change or give up your phone number, make sure to update all your accounts that use that number as a way to contact or authenticate you. It is important to take action before you lose access to the “old” number since it could be allocated to someone else in the future. If you don’t, it’s possible that the number’s new owner could get your security messages in the future.
Following these steps will help you protect your personal information when turning in an old phone.
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