Ditch that old device? Or not?

Tech experts say that most people who buy new phones in the UAE are reluctant to discard their old ones. They’d rather store them in a cupboard or hand them down to close family members like a child or a parent. But this is not just a UAE phenomenon. Everyone feels that way. Many people have old smart phones and old laptops sitting in their cupboards. Some laptops might even be from the 'dark ages' but they still contain files and photos. Even after copying the files onto an external drive or USB and deleting the files from the device doesn’t reassure them that all is safe.

Many are so scared that their data may fall into the wrong hands that they even do a factory reset of the phone or reset the laptop before discarding or donating it.

Some people are even particular about how they recycle their devices. Most likely they are comfortable handing the device to their closest family members like a mum, dad, child or sibling but, even after wiping the device clean, they still won't recycle them outside their homes or give them to anyone they don't know. In their defence, because I’m like that too, I would only hand over my old device to someone in my immediate family but never to anyone outside or anyone I barely know.

So many shops offer trade-in opportunities. You trade in your older device and get a discount on a new one. These offers are all over the place. But has anyone ever been tempted by them? For the same reasons, I doubt anyone would risk it. Honestly speaking, they'd rather hand them down to their children or elderly parents.

But kids are tech savvy and know what’s old and what’s not and, because they think they're outdated devices even though they might be just 2 to 3 years old, they just don’t want them. People then have 3 options. Either do a trade-in or discard them or store them in cupboards.

Also, in their defence, and mine too, people are scared for a good reason. There are far too many apps and software that are capable of recovering information that has been deleted from a device. And where an app or software doesn’t recover everything, there are many data recovery experts who are able to do the job better than an app, even when the device has had a complete factory reset.

Granted that a lot of these fears do come from television shows about crime scene investigations where a tech expert in the crime lab was able to crack into an old phone using their latest technology but a lot of TV shows emulate life and not just the other way round.

Now all this sounds very scary but there’s another angle that might give some people comfort. It’s true that there are a lot of companies that call themselves data recovery experts but who are not able to recover anything.

Many years ago, my company laptop crashed. It had all my Health and Safety files on the hard drive and nothing had been backed up anywhere. The IT department sent the hard drive to a data recovery company. The hard drive was with them for a month but eventually the company came back to us and explained that they weren’t able to recover anything from it.

Is this a sad story or a happy story? I was very upset because I’d lost all my working documents and had to start from scratch. On the upside, if it were my personal laptop that I’d reset and given to someone and that someone tried to have the data dug up but the company was unsuccessful, well, for me it’s a happy story.

So, what should you do with your old devices and laptops? It’s hard to give advice here because sometimes someone with malice, or who is just nosey, may try to have your information recovered, in which case you hope that they find a data recovery house like the one my old company found. Or you keep a pile of electronics in your cupboard which is what most people do.