I have several smartphones that no longer work. I was going to rid of them one way or another, but it concerns me a bit that someone could recover information from those devices (photos, accounts, etc). Is it safe to dispose them?

I can’t delete anything since the phones don’t work. I can’t just remove the “hard drive” can I?

  • Helix 🧬
    10•2 years ago

    I can’t just remove the “hard drive” can I?

    Yes, you can. You could desolder the flash chips which are used to store your data.

    You could also pry the phone open and destroy the flash chip.

    Newer Android phones thankfully have full disk encryption which makes recovery without a PIN nearly impossible.

    • @Pan_de_dulce@lemmy.mlOP
      2•2 years ago

      I don’t have a solder, and even if I had one I wouldn’t know what to desolder or how. But thanks for the info about disk encryption :D