If you reset your phone, does it completely wipe away all data?

[areyousafe??]

Planning on doing this before I ctb, in case there are investigations.

 

[Gangrel]

yes and no, most of the data nowdays stays on your apple account or google account if you have an android, so it really depends on what you don't want to be found

 

[Jadeith]

Maybe this will help:

Protected Phone Data: Can Police Still Access Your Private Information

Mobile phones are everywhere nowadays. Smartphones especially have made our lives easier in a multitude of ways, but they also store huge amounts of data about us and what we do. As such, mobile phones are often used in trials…

www.stuartmillersolicitors.co.uk

 

[areyousafe??]

Maybe this will help:

Protected Phone Data: Can Police Still Access Your Private Information

Mobile phones are everywhere nowadays. Smartphones especially have made our lives easier in a multitude of ways, but they also store huge amounts of data about us and what we do. As such, mobile phones are often used in trials…

www.stuartmillersolicitors.co.uk

Thank you!

yes and no, most of the data nowdays stays on your apple account or google account if you have an android, so it really depends on what you don't want to be found

How about if I delete the google account as well?

 

[Jadeith]

How about if I delete the google account as well?

Backups are kept for a while even after account's deletion.

 

[NearlyIrrelevantCake]

Unless you physically destroy the phone, there will always be something recoverable if law enforcement digs hard enough.

And that's just what's physically on the phone itself, there will also be online backups of that stuff.

 

[Volser]

I could be wrong about this, someone correct me if I am, but I'm pretty sure both iphone and android phones, at least these days, encrypt the physical storage by default, and I'm guessing that when they get reset the keys are lost. This means the data would likely be unrecoverable, almost as much as if it was written over completely. So technically no, effectively yes. As others have mentioned though, there's still online data.

 

[CogitoMori]

Depends on who's getting into it. Intelligence agencies can retrieve the entire history of the phone all the way back to the test photos from the factory.

 

[maniac116]

In a word, no!
It can be forensically retrieved if needed most of the time.

 

[baconbandit]

Kinda. The best way to destroy digital evidence is to burn, smash and scatter the pieces of whatever device is holding the stuff. Even then, there's cloud storage which you obviosuly won't affect by doing this but you can try to delete what you can from it before destroying the device.

 

[ShatteredSerenity]

If you have a modern phone, the data on it should be protected by strong encryption that would be very difficult to break. It's very time consuming and expensive ($1.3m in one case) to crack a strong encryption algorithm, so it's something they only do if it's a high stakes case, for example active terrorism investigation or a kidnapping case where they still hope to rescue the victim.

Your online data is probably easier to access, depending on the laws that apply in your jurisdiction. Law enforcement can get an order from the judge compelling the online providers to disclose relevant information from your account. If you have any information you absolutely want to remain secure, you'd have to delete it online as well as on your phone.

Any efforts to access your data by law enforcemet will cost them time, money and energy, so they aren't likely to do any more than the mininum needed to do their job and close the case. If it's an apparent suicide they will be collecting evidence to make sure it's not a disguised murder, and the medical examiner will collect evidence to confirm it's a suicide. Since there wouldn't be any criminals on the loose or crime to investigate, they wouldn't be likely to put much effort into accessing your personal data.