New phone security tips

If you get a new phone it is important to make sure you remove your personal information from your old phone, once your new phone is set up.

Why do I need to remove my personal information from my old phone?

Your old phone could have a lot of sensitive, personal information on it like your passwords, emails, text messages, photos, videos and you may have the phone linked to your banking app for authorisation of transactions.

Depending on the manufacturer, when you transfer data from an old phone to a new phone all your personal information could remain on the old phone. If this information ends up in the wrong hands, it could potentially put your personal data at risk. They could access accounts in your name, spend your money, hack into your email or social media accounts.

Here’s some tips on how to remove your personal information once you have set up your new phone.

See how to set up the PTSB app on your new phone.

Back It Up

If you're going to trade in or sell your phone, the first thing you should do is back up your data to your new phone or your computer.

Remove SIM and SD Cards

If your phone has a SIM card, it may store your personal information. Remove the SIM card. If you're keeping the same phone number, you may be able to transfer your SIM card to your new phone. But if you don't re-use the SIM card, we advise that you destroy it. If your phone has an SD memory card for storage, remove it.

Find out more about SIM swap.

Erase Your Personal Information

Remove information from your old phone by restoring or resetting it. This is often called a factory reset. After you restore, or reset your phone, confirm that you erased things like your contacts, text messages, photos, videos, and browsing history.

If you are keeping your phone and not willing to reset it, we advise you to delete any banking apps from the old phone and consider clearing your passwords and logging out of any email accounts for extra security.

Disconnect Your Phone From Accounts and Devices

Before you trade in or sell your old phone, double check that it’s:

• No longer connected to your online accounts or other devices like apple or google two factor authentication.
• If your phone was paired to another device, like a watch or a vehicle, make sure it’s unpaired.
• Make sure that passwords for your accounts and Wi-Fi are no longer saved on your phone.
• If you use 2-step verification or multi-factor authentication to log in to any social media accounts, remove your phone from the list of trusted devices. Ensure that your new device is your registered device for your PTSB banking app.