News - PC repair shops found to be snooping customers' data

[Ultramag]

This is a prime example of why I personally would never use a repair shop, you just never know who you can or cannot trust.

[Flash477]

This is a prime example of why I personally would never use a repair shop, you just never know who you can or cannot trust.

Sadly many people do not have a choice as they neither know how to do it themselves, or anyone else who would know AND be willing to do it for them.

All people have to go by is recommendations. Then again the person who recommended it could have been ripped off and/or had their files snopped / copied, but had a working computer at the end of it.

[dshepsman]

I think it should be common practice that harddrives are removed prior to handing any computer for repair.

Surely removing the hdd isnt going to help in the diagnostic process, even if it isnt completely software related.

and do you think these repair shows have a spare hdd laying around with a copy of windows/other os for every make and model of laptop/pc?

unless of course you want them to charge you an extra few hundred quid for diagnosis purposes just for loading/configuring an OS?

then whats next? removing ram incase its gets pinched / replaced by a lesser module?
dont give em your quad core cpu incase they downgrade it to a celeron?
The people who use these repair shops wont know the diff in most cases....

[bhogey]

It's human nature to snoop. Easy answer is don't keep sensitive material on your hard drive, I was burgled some years back so glad I kept everything that was sensitive in nature on other media hidden well out of sight.