stolen phone

[TwinkleM]

Hi All,

Anyone has experience of remotely erasing the data on their stolen Samsung S phone? i rang O2 and the sim has been blocked already. Does this includes the device being blocked too? 

Any advice is much appreciated.

Twinkle

[Cleoriff]

Hi @TwinkleM 

If you phoned and reported the phone lost or stolen, they block the sim and the phone.

Guide: Lost or Stolen O2 Device? - How to Report it 

[Bambino]

@TwinkleM Advice from Samsung: What to do if you have lost your Galaxy device (samsung.com)

[madasaf1sh]

@TwinkleM 

If the Phone has no data, you will have to rely on it been connected to WiFi otherwise you can't delete the data.

[pgn]

Interesting snippet from that, @Bambino:

If for some reason you cannot remotely erase your device, Samsung recommends that you change the passwords on any accounts that may be logged into the device to prevent any unauthorized access. When you change your Samsung account password, every device that uses that account will be logged out automatically.

Note: If your phone or tablet has an SD card, its data will also be erased during the reset.

Presumably, if device encryption was enabled on the lost phone, without the credentials the data on the phone would be useless anyway.

Also remote wipe assumes the lost device is actually on an accessible network - so, if O2 disable SIM and phone, the person who has the phone has to bring it up on WiFi for that to work... as @madasaf1sh noted above.

The "change your passwords" bit is probably the most important bit of the whole "lost my phone" or "phone was stolen" rigmarole.