The biggest problem if you lose your mobile phone is not so much linked to the money it is worth (which in some cases can be a lot)
but to the data contained within. Depending on the applications used, a modern smartphone contains more personal data than any computer such as, for example: the address book, SMS messages and WhatsApp messages, Facebook access data, Google account access data, full availability of the e-mail, bank details, calendar notes, home addresses, personal photos, the history of places we have gone (from Google Maps). Virtually anyone who steals our smartphone can access all this data without problems, especially if whoever finds or steals it is a little bit computer savvy and knows how to remove any protections such as the screen lock or PIN.
Fortunately, all Android phones have a remote wipe system that can help us find the phone or, more quickly, delete everything in the memory. Let’s see together how to delete data from a stolen or lost mobile phone , so as to keep our personal data safe.
Erase data from a lost or stolen Android phone
The Google synchronization system on Android also offers the possibility to delete any data in the memory remotely even if we can no longer use the phone, but obviously we must activate this form of remote control before the theft or loss, as also seen in the guide “Find my Android” the app to find my mobile .
If this function has been activated (and it is better to check immediately that it is), in case the phone has been lost or stolen, we can try both to locate the position of the smartphone and to remotely erase its memory. To do this, get any PC or Mac computer, go to the Find my device site or use another Android device and the Google Find my device app ; now we access the site or app using the same Google credentials present on the lost Android smartphone and, selecting the phone at the top right, press the Reset device item .
This will cause the smartphone to send a command to do a complete factory reset and delete any data inside . The command will be received as soon as the smartphone connects to the Internet (via cellular data network or known Wi-Fi networks); if it has been lost and that whoever has recently stolen it, it is sufficient to intervene immediately, before turning off the device or the cellular data network.
Alternatives to delete lost or stolen phone data
A more effective solution to prepare before the phone is lost or stolen is the one offered by Prey Anti Theft , a real anti-theft device for Android mobile phones.
The application remains hidden on the phone and, once configured, allows you to receive remote commands via SMS or to control the phone remotely if it is connected to the internet (you can also browse files remotely to retrieve important photos by transferring them to the PC). Through an SMS (therefore even without direct access to the Internet, the normal 2G cellular network is enough) it is possible to request the cancellation of the cell phone memory, so that those who find it or steal it cannot spy on our private facts.
Alternatively, we can use some apps designed to protect the phone from malware and viruses, which often also include an effective system for finding the phone and deleting personal data remotely. One of the most suitable apps for this purpose is Avast Antivirus , which can be downloaded from the Google Play Store .
By starting this app and assigning administrative permissions we can track the phone via targeted geolocation (with Wi-Fi and cellular data network) and, if nothing else can be done, we can delete the data remotely.
To discover other similar apps, we invite you to read our Anti-theft guide for smartphones that locks, locates and deletes memory.
Conclusions
With the old phones there was really no hope: once lost or stolen we could not help but report the fact and block the SIM, so that we could reuse at least the same phone number on a new SIM and a new mobile phone. Modern smartphones are much more sophisticated and difficult to delete, so it just needs to be turned on and connected to the cellular data network to be able to trace it or, if in doubt, delete all the data, so as to protect our privacy and our accounts.
Obviously, in case of loss of the mobile phone, if it were unrecoverable, it is better to immediately change each password to access the applications used and disconnect from all accounts set up on the phone, so as to avoid the theft of valuable accounts such as the Amazon account, the account of the bank or the Poste Italiane account.
Still on the subject of theft and loss of the phone, we can learn more by reading our guide Finding the IMEI code to block the phone if it is stolen.
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