What do you do with your used mobile phone once you have decided to buy a new mobile phone? You sell it either on some local store or through an online store like contacthello.

Have you ever worried about the data that is present in your used mobile phone, that you are selling to someone else? Seems like you are not alone. A survey conducted by BT, the University of Glamorgan in Pontypridd and Edith Cowan University, Australia found that a fifth of second hand mobile devices contain sensitive company and personal information.

Also nearly a quarter of the mobile phones contained sufficient information to identify the owner and employer.

Blackberry devices were the ones carrying the greatest volume of information.

In many cases it was possible to recover the call history, the address book, the diary and the messages from the device and the information these provided included a business plan of the organisation and it also identified its customers and the state of the relationships with them.

The findings raise a question that will be repeated many time in the near future. As mobile handsets become smarter by the day, are the users realising that this is not just another harmless gadget?

It will be interesting to see a similar study done on used mobile phones in India as well. The findings may not be as scary as the use of smart phones has not become too high. YET !!