Samsung Repair Mode keeps your data safe from technicians

Samsung introduces recovery mode to protect your personal data from repair specialists.

Our smartphones now contain all or almost all of our lives. At least our entire digital life. In other words, it is important that these devices do not fall into the wrong hands. That’s why manufacturers take protective measures, in particular through blocking/unblocking. But when a smartphone is broken and in need of repair, it is often completely unprotected. Samsung today presents an interesting solution.

Samsung introduces recovery mode

Hackers are constantly stealing and reselling a bunch of personal data on more or less obscure sites. Therefore, giving your smartphone to a repair shop, whoever it is, is not very reassuring. Yes, you can erase your device before shipping, but you’ll have to restore everything after you’ve restored it. Which is not very practical. The South Korean giant has developed a solution specifically for this scenario, a feature called Repair Mode.

to protect personal data from repairmen

According to an announcement spotted by SamMobile, you can activate this new mode in Settings > Battery & Device Maintenance. Samsung hasn’t explained the technology behind this feature, but when the mode is activated, your personal information, photos, messages, and associated accounts are hidden. The technician can only see apps that are pre-installed on the device. To regain access to your data, simply turn off recovery mode and use your PIN or fingerprint, depending on how your device is configured, to verify your identity.

Samsung has yet to announce this feature outside of Korea. In other words, it is only available in this country for now. Also, it currently only exists on the Galaxy S21. That being said, the South Korean giant has already announced that the repair mode will appear on other models and hopefully in other countries in the future.