Properly dispose of mobile devices and data

Did you get a new smartphone or tablet on Black Friday or Cyber Monday? If so, you will want to make sure that you properly remove any personal data or sensitive Michigan Medicine data on your old device before you dispose of it.

The Safe Computing website offers helpful instructions for securely deleting the data on mobile devices, whether they are personally-owned or institutionally-owned.

Once the data is erased, be sure to take the appropriate steps to discard your device in a way that will not harm the environment.

Planet Blue’s sustainable computing website offers tips on where and how to recycle personal devices with a list of U-M best practices.

See the following policies from the organization’s Standard Practice Guide for more information about mobile devices:

• Policy 520.01 addresses the acquisition, use and disposition of property

• Policy 601.33 describes how to keep secure personal devices that are used to access internal resources. It also describes sanitizing a device before disposal.