A practice of these professionals in whom clients place all their trust has just been denounced. It concerns more than half of them.
It is not uncommon for our smartphones to be damaged or to have a bug so serious that we have to take them to a repairer. These specialists have complex tools to disassemble our devices and find the different reasons for our breakdowns. But are smartphone repairers as honest as they claim? This is what the CBCNews site tried to find out by conducting a survey in 20 stores specializing in repair.
To carry out their work, the journalists went to a wide range of specialists, ranging from small independents to large groups renowned in the field. They brought several devices such as smartphones and laptops, all equipped with monitoring software that allowed them to view the actions performed by repairers. The devices sent for repair had several false personal information as well as intimate photos arranged within other more generic photos.
“The results are frightening,” summarizes the director of this study: of the 16 specialists consulted, 9 accessed the personal data of the devices and in particular the intimate photos which were on the smartphones and computers entrusted to the repair store. More than half of smartphone repairers have taken advantage of their position to spy on and even steal your personal information, intimate photos and videos. An observation which suggests that one in two customers have been fooled without the slightest doubt.
Some specialists simply displayed the photos in “large format” preview so as not to have to click on them, while others directly clicked on the files in question to display them large on the smartphone screen or from the computer. L’CBC article thus shows several screen captures of what the repairers were able to see: people in private or even intimate situations such as when trying on swimsuits or underwear, sometimes in the simplest device.
A technician looked through several folders of photos, including those with names like “Bikinis” or “Nightwear.” Some offenders even took care to delete the files’ browsing history in order to hide the fact that they viewed the photos. “They are covering their tracks,” confirms one of the investigators.
The results of this investigation went even further: one of the repairers did not just look at the photos that were on the device given by the CBC journalists. Spy software spotted that intimate photos had been copied and pasted onto a USB drive. The company in question was quickly contacted and stated that it was a “isolated event” and that the technician had “suffered several disciplinary measures”.
Although the survey was carried out in Canada, voyeurism by smartphone repairers is a subject in many countries, including France. Advice is also available online to protect your data before sending it to a repairer.