Beijing (China), March 22, 2012 - A young woman was shocked to find her deleted naked photos from her broken iPhone recovered by a repairman who displayed openly in a phone store in China's Zhejiang Province.
Experts have warned that smart phones such as iPhone may not protect the owner's privacy and deleted photos and other data can be easily recovered with software, the Zhejiang-based Qianjiang Evening News reported today.
The woman's nightmare began on Tuesday when a man named Liu Shenghao said on his Weibo microblog that a woman customer sent her broken iPhone to a phone store for repair and a repairman not only fixed her phone but also recovered her naked photos she had deleted a long time ago.
Liu said that the repairman copied the photos to sample phones at the store, making them visible to every customer.
A store manager admitted that a worker downloaded those naked photos and the woman client was stunned to see her naked photos in a sample phone as she came to pick up her iPhone, Shanghai Daily reported.
The woman's boyfriend rushed to the store for explanation and alerted the police, the paper said.
Police are investigating to find if the repairman recovered the photos intentionally.
The incident has sparked a heated discussion among netizens. Many questioned why deleted pictures can still be recovered in the smart phone.
A phone repairman surnamed Zhu told the newspaper that it is possible to recover deleted data using a kind of software available on many websites.
Zhu said iPhones of higher versions are equipped with iCloud application which allows users to upload data to a server.
With the right username and password, the deleted data can be reloaded from the server, Zhu said.
ÒThe woman probably uploaded her photos to the server and her username and password were used by the repairman to retrieve the deleted pictures,Ó Zhu said.
Experts are warning smart phone holders to keep secret of their usernames and passwords and turn off the data uploading services such as iCloud before they send their phones for repair works.
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