Selling unused devices on eBay or Craigslist is a great way to make a little extra money, especially if your device is still fairly new. Unfortunately, if you are not careful, it is also a way to sell your identity.
Recently, security company Avast purchased 20 used Android phones off of eBay and used software to recover deleted data from the phone. This study found over 40,000 photos still left on the phones, including over 1,500 photos of children and over 1,000 nude or revealing photos. Google search history, emails, text messages, contact information, and even a completed loan application were also recovered from these devices.
On iOS, much of this is already handled for you. Since your data is already encrypted, a secure wipe is enough to clean the device. Someone might be able to find your files on the device, but without your encryption key, they will not be able to decrypt them. On Android, you can set up encryption of your data using the Security option in the Settings app. Encrypt your files, and then perform a factory reset.
In Mac OS X, you can use the Erase Free Space option in Disk Utility to write junk data over your deleted data. For Windows devices, you can use a utility like CCleaner or Eraser to do the same. Then, reinstall the operating system using a recovery partition or disc.
Besides protecting your data, you will also want to make sure you have backed up all your data and log out or deactivate any accounts (once your device has been wiped, this will be much harder). If your product has a limited number of devices it can be used on, you don't want one of your activations to be for a device you no longer use.
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