Data not erased from devices

Data is not being erased from mobile devices, meaning those bought second-hand pose a security risk, research has found.

A study by BT, the University of Glamorgan and Edith Cowan University in Australia discovered that second-hand mobile phones and PDAs still had important company and personal information from the previous owner.

The team could access data like salaries, bank account numbers and medical files on the 160 devices they looked at, with Blackberrys found to be the worst.

Few Blackberrys had the encryption feature enabled and 43 per cent contained sufficient information to discover the previous owner's identity and employer, with the figure for mobile phones 23 per cent.

Dr Andy Jones, BT head of information security research, said it was "difficult to understand" why organisations were not using the various tools available to safely remove data from handheld devices.

"These everyday items now contain sophisticated digital memory capable of storing huge amounts of sensitive data," he said.

"Organisations must ensure that adequate procedures are in place to destroy any data and to check that these procedures are effective."