Have you ever given your mobile for service? If so, do you know what happens after your mobile leaves your hand?

A few years ago, one of my mobiles conked. I took it to a local service centre -- not an authorised one as the mobile was out of warranty and was very old. I was told to wait outside. As there was no response even after 15 minutes, I peeped inside. The guy was busy browsing my photos folder. He was trying to retrieve deleted photos using a recovery software.

I went back and sat fully confident that he won’t get anything. The reason: I didn’t have any ‘exciting’ pictures on my mobile and I had wiped out the entire content of the SD card before giving it to service. I knew this would happen. I had used a wiping software to remove all traces of information on the card and had also formatted it.

Another day, another mobile: It took a full week for the mobile to come back to me. After several days, I got a shock when I was browsing the photo gallery. There were five photos of a young girl smiling at the camera. Enquiries at home (whether it was their work) brought back suspicious looks. I denied I had anything to do with the pictures (and the girl, of course). I realised how she got into my mobile. It was the service centre guy (or one of his friends) ‘testing’ the camera. The girl obviously was least bothered about the pictures being taken.

The third time, it was the Nokia 808. When the phone came back, the first thing I did was to check the gallery for girl’s photos. But this time, they were all legs -- not of girls, but of the service centre guys. I am still wondering why the service guy had nothing else to snap.

So, if you have got your mobile from the service centre, you know where to look first.

dinakaran.rengachary@thehindu.co.in

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