There may come a time when your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone will need service and repair, which means that you will have to turn over your device to experts such as the technicians at A Plus Computers in Apple Valley. Should you take precautions with regard to privacy before leaving the equipment?
Keeping Your Data Secure During Computer Repairs
Your right to privacy is something that our shop technicians understand very well. When it comes to privacy, we have to recognize that we live in difficult times; earlier this year, unsealed court documents revealed that the Geek Squad section of Best Buy, one of the largest electronics retailers in the United States, had conspired with the FBI to carry out snooping and copying of personal data stored in computer devices left by unsuspecting customers to repair.
[su_note note_color=”#F4f4f4″]What is troubling about the FBI and Best Buy relationship is that it amounted to surveillance without probable cause or even a search warrant. In fact, legal analysts who have followed this case believe that most judges would not have issued warrants because the vague reasons given by FBI agents were egregious. Still, Geek Squad technicians agreed to be FBI informants.[/su_note]
Understanding Your Rights Against Surveillance
The Geek Squad/FBI case has uncomfortable echoes of the mass NSA surveillance program that came to light due to the whistleblowing actions of Edward Snowden. The trust between government agencies and the public has been broken, and the Best Buy incident exacerbates the situation.
Let’s say your Windows 10 laptop is acting up and you are concerned about your privacy. If you do not wish to provide a login password, you should create a standard or guest account for the technicians to use; in this fashion, you can log out of your Microsoft Account completely and let our technicians work without having access to your files.
[su_note note_color=”#F4f4f4″]If you have further concerns and have time to stay in the shop, we may be able to coordinate a session whereby you enter the login credentials so that our technicians backup your data in a manner that respects your privacy. From that point on, you may instruct our technicians to either perform a clean Windows 10 install with proper configuration, or you may even request for a secure deletion of sensitive data that we have already backed up.[/su_note]
Your privacy is very important to us; if you would like to learn more about secure backups and data encryption using the Microsoft BitLocker utility, contact A Plus Computers today. Safeguarding your data privacy before your computing device requires repairs is always a good idea.
