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Wipe a phones data
- Thread starter Frekigeri
- Start date
If the device is turned off you cannot wipe the data
Thank you for your reply ,would it still be possible to open my whats app account on a new device and delete it , by doing this it will remove what's app from old device ?
I would contact whatsapp and have them deactivate your account
The dial-in number for the call is (866) 751-3284 (toll free) and (973) 935-8772 (international)
The dial-in number for the call is (866) 751-3284 (toll free) and (973) 935-8772 (international)
Would deleting the account using a new device work the same ? That way removing all data related to the app from the phone ?
Would that work if phone is off ?
Speak to whatsapp, we have no idea
svim
Extreme Android User
If the phone is switched off and left that way, there's no connectivity for any online service to be able to access that phone. Your carrier, WhatsApp, and any other service will have no way to access the phone itself. There are two ways for that phone to have any access remotely -- WiFi or cellular. With the former, if the lost phone is presumably well outside the range of any of the connected WiFi networks you have on it, than it will be up to whomever has your phone to add their own WiFi network(s). With the latter, if you've already contacted your carrier and notified them about this, your account on that phone should be canceled and that phone will now be blacklisted.
Did you have a lock screen enabled? (iris scanner, or fingerprint, or password, etc.) Your data on that phone should be more or less OK if you did. Despite the scary, reactionary stories in the media on how accessible data is on something like a lost smartphone, the reality is most of us aren't be able to crack into a lock screen. And for the tiny, tiny percentage of people who do have the resources to crack into smartphones, it's not like they're just randomly picking up phones to find any kind of possible pay-off info, it's definitely only on specifically targeted devices. (i.e. some law enforcement agency is investigating you)
Where did you lose this phone? Odds are if someone did find it, once they play around with it for a few minutes and realize the lock screen isn't so easy to get past, they'll just get bored and move on.
Did you have a lock screen enabled? (iris scanner, or fingerprint, or password, etc.) Your data on that phone should be more or less OK if you did. Despite the scary, reactionary stories in the media on how accessible data is on something like a lost smartphone, the reality is most of us aren't be able to crack into a lock screen. And for the tiny, tiny percentage of people who do have the resources to crack into smartphones, it's not like they're just randomly picking up phones to find any kind of possible pay-off info, it's definitely only on specifically targeted devices. (i.e. some law enforcement agency is investigating you)
Where did you lose this phone? Odds are if someone did find it, once they play around with it for a few minutes and realize the lock screen isn't so easy to get past, they'll just get bored and move on.
So what you are saying is that even if I have logged into what's app on a new device and deleted the account , the phone will still store all the data until it's connected to WiFi or online in some format ?
Although that account is dead it can't be wiped from the device ?
svim
Extreme Android User
No, not stating that in any way. It's a matter where just using Uninstall to remove an app does not necessarily mean everything relative to that app gets deleted. Again, for a lot of apps when you've made any changes to an app (i.e. add in your login/password and changed options) that data will be left unless you use Clear Data before using Uninstall. It's just text and such so size-wise it's an insignificant amount of storage space. So no, just to clarify, the app or its background process isn't left running, it's just data.
A typical example is when you install and use an app, then just uninstall it but decide to later reinstall it again, but you don't need to go through the same process of authenticating your account with that app again. That's because the config/settings data was left as is when you first installed and used the app but didn't totally remove it the first time.
If you find this to be upsetting, if you have ever used a computer it's a long-standing, common occurrence too. Just uninstalling a program doesn't necessarily wipe all its settings and configuration files. In most situations, they all get stored in hidden folders (preceded by .) in your local directory where you might be able to use a file manager to manually clean them.