Taking your computer to the repair shop? BE VERY AFRAID!

This comes across like Linus Media Group saying "Trust me, bro."

You should have a privacy policy, it's an indication to the customer that you hold yourself and your employees to a standard that respects the customer. It's about establishing trust with your customers, not about giving a customer ground to sue or seek restitution for reputational damage done, and it's absolutely not an iron clad guarantee.

To me it indicates at the least you would be likely to hold an employee accountable for breaching those policies rather than an avenue to shrug your shoulders and move forward. It shows some degree of consideration.

I worked in a repair shop in Houston for over ten years and anytime someone was nervous about their data we would do exactly want to said, remove the drive and place it in an anti-static bag and hand it back to them. Then tell them that when they come pickup the repair to have extra time for us to replace the drive and test it with them next to us in the showroom to confirm to repair was satisfactory.

Let's be honest if someone can do something with no consequences they are gonna do it.
Why?
Cause they can.
That is why.

Yea from compliance perspective, when they say “control” they mostly mean “administrative control” which is a fancy word for “honor system”

the cat is the most major reason I watch your videos

Perfect way to go ! Take out the SSD or HDD and give to the customer ! But how to work if the problem is in the hard disk ?

I keep personal data on secondary drives and in the rare cases that I had to bring my computer in, I removed every drive except the primary drive.

I don't even ask for passwords unless a customer offers it, or it is really needed.. I can't imagine being creepy and sneaking a look at customers data.
Edit: I tell my customers that I am like their doctor when it comes to data. It's private and it stays private.

First time I have to disagree about the privacy part. Being able to hold someone liable and accountable is all you can do. There is no way to share information without an honor system. It's the damages you can sue for that the privacy policy indeed offers. Having some sort of legal remedy.

Dude i listen to your videos and was doing shit on minecraft and im at 19 minutes and i have not been listening to a WORD you have said im crying

90% of the time when “control” is mentioned, they mean “administrative control” which is another way of saying “my manager told me not to do it”
Administrative controls only work if there are consequences for bad conduct. Even if we assume they can audit for such bad conduct (they can’t) like Louis said, you can’t undo it.

Its Le Oreo!!

wankery

I once handed in a Laptop with hundreds of subpixel errors. Since it was covered under legal warranty in Germany I wanted a replacement laptop. Before sending it in I overwrote the drive with random data.
They installed Windows and sent it back after 4 months without any hardware repairs. I didn't even buy it with Windows.

There were some legal parts after that, but due to their mishandling I legally cancelled the contract I had with them. The whole process probably got pushed back due to them not realising that I purged the drive on purpose.

I find it insane that people hands in their devices that has their personal stored data to a repair place without whipping the device back to factory first.

SleepyOreo

Sadly all computer problems I have ever had were either something easily fixable (like putting in a new psu) or something software related with proprietary drivers that got busted..maybe because they were running when the PSU gave out. Maybe. Perhaps. Also maybe that was the control unit for a 100k x-ray machine and perhaps the company instead of fixing my very expensive tool, sent the pc back even more broken to the point that it wouldn't even boot anymore. Maybe. Possibly.

I backup my sensitive files on an external hard drive and shred them using Bitdefender off of my local hard drive. Not perfect, doing that in addition to go my to the same IT tech for a decade is as good as a policy I was able up come up with. Touching my PC otherwise = disaster waiting to happen.

That thing with the "why don't they have a written policy" reminds me of the following exchange from "Seinfeld", after Jerry finds out that Willie, the dry cleaning guy, wore his jacket:
Jerry: "I saw you the other night stepping out with my Hounds-Tooth jacket."
Willie: "Jerry... That's a breach of the dry cleaner’s code!"
Jerry: "You need a code to tell you not to wear people’s clothes?!"

I trust blackberry and Oreo not to touch the keyboard more than I trust Tesla now.

I learned to fix computers because sometime after I got my first computer, my Mom would take it to a computer repair shop. After the third time getting it back in worse shape than I took it to them in, I said, "Fuck it!" and learned how to fix it myself heh. That was when I was like 12-13 and I'm 35 now; it's only gotten worse since

As my Mommy always said, "If you want it done right, do it yourself" heh

You've got a solid policy, Louis, I like that!

Operating systems need some sort of repair mode to allow techs to investigate drivers and stuff but not see user data.

“Controls” —these are same morons who think “gun control” does ANYTHING to stop bad actors with a gun.

"We need better privacy policies, controls, open process yada yada yada" = "We need better paperwork for customers to read and agree to so they can't sue as much"

Today I learned that Louis listens to Enrque Iglesias's "Ring My Bells". Mwah-ha-ha-ha!

Louis saying he can’t get a line of credit is way more funny now we no what New York did with its lien

The word given in the name of honor means one thing, that it will be broken. Not by everybody, but by many !!! Proof of this is the word of a cop in court, it has more value than the word of the defendant. But time and time cops are breaking their oath by lying in reports and in court !!!

There are some cases in which a repair store may need access to your operating system. In that experiment was an audio driver issue, which is a good example of a situation in which that would need to happen. And like Louis mentioned, if you don't let them access your OS, you run the risk of things not working properly. For that reason in particular, many manufacturers, and (I would assume) some repair shops won't even give you the option of not handing the password over.

Obviously, the best thing to do is encrypt the drive or not give them the drive at all where possible. However, if you're unable to do that, remove any sensitive data off the drive and back it up somewhere (No, the device does not need to be working to do this. You can plug it into another device directly or with a USB adapter). Then you need to run a file shredder to ensure there are no recoverable traces of the files on the drive. Another thing is to ensure that all your password/autofill data is not stored in your browser for all to see, and instead deleted or stored safely in an encrypted password manager behind a separate, strong password.

To be fair, you can't trust anyone. If you bring your computer in to be repaired, it's on you to make sure it has nothing of "value" for people to look at. Hell, put some blue waffle pictures in the photo documents, for fun : )

I would feel more comfortable if you said you just wanted to be paid for your services, instead of repeating that you just want my money.....

What happened with Hunter Biden's laptop computer is a strong reason for being afraid of computer repair shops!

Very informative video. These were some things that were already worrying to me. I think that my approach would be to learn how to remove the SSD or HDD manually from your system and then replace it with a brand new emply one with no data and give it to the repair shop. But, let's say the problem is with the SSD itself. In that case, I wouldn't even bother. I would just remove my SSD and destroy it and ask them to put in brand new one. This is not cost effective and its time consuming but atleast I will have peace of mind.

Privacy policies are like no gun zones.... Sure, might may you feel all warm and cozy, but in the end, does shit.

Hunter Biden should've took his laptop to you

your food color analogy is bad because you can get food color out of water with a centrifuge the food color weighs more then water and their for can be separated in a centrifuge you can also distill food color out of water or you can also use activated charcoal to absorb the food color in the water

just like your loaded gun analogy is also bad because you can have a loaded gun that can not shoot some one because their is two different kinds of loaded their is a gun with just a loaded magazine and a gun with a loaded chamber both guns are technically loaded but only the gun with a loaded chamber will shoot if you pull the trigger

now you should always treat a real gun as if the chamber is loaded and you should never point a real gun at anything you are not willing to destroy regardless of if its chamber is loaded or not

The only & best control method that can be provided is that the price of the repair goes up slightly more, the repair process is recorded from start to finish. When the customer brings the laptop in, they but it in a box that they sign / place a seal to as well as they give a second seal to be applied once the process is completed. The recording of the process is from the moment the seal is removed to the moment the second seal is applied. Then the repair store hands the USB with the recording to the customer. But even that sounds dumb.

It amazes me at the amount of wisdom coming from such a niche profession.
Also, that is one happy sandwich cookie.

Criminals don't follow the law or rules. Go figure.

I truly feel sorry for those people who do not know how to repair their computer. Just the cost of installing RAM is crazy high, let alone an actual difficult task. Not only is your data and privacy in danger, but so is your wallet.

Some years ago I got a job repairing computers at a certain office supply chain store that did computer repair. I was told by the manager that if we found anything suspicious, such as child porn, on a customer's computer while fixing it, we were required to inform the police. When I pointed out that it is illegal for us as techs to browse a customer's data while fixing the system, the manager just glared at me. Shortly after I was laterally moved from the repair shop to stocking shelves, then forced out completely. I am of the same mind as you. I will fix your computer. Your data means nothing to me. And I do have people that will happily sit there with a cup of coffee and watch while I do what I do. I'm happy for them to ask questions about what I'm doing and happy to explain it to them. If I have to access the OS for any reason (check settings, run updates, and so on), I boot to the login screen then walk out of the room while they log in. I will not accept their user names and passwords. The computers might belong to a business or an old WWII vet who is lonely and wants to tell his stories and show me the pictures he had digitized - I've had many of those. If they want to show the data, I'll look with them. But if they are not there, I stay out of it.

An excellent policy in your business and an excellent video as well!

I send a laptop in for 'Costco Conciege' support to fix a broken hinge. In the repair list, they included reinstalling the OS and drivers. Why the hell do they need to that for a repair of a hinge?

Oreo jumped up as the mic was having issues. Hes on top it.

My ex girlfriend ended up in court be cause she took her laptop to a repair shop and the dude handed it over to the police. As an IT professional I think this is unethical conduct, and would not even be going through personal files. But hey I actually like to stand by my principles 100 percent correct as usual though my dude, unfortunately if you don't want this to happen only option is to remove or encrypt Case was thrown out of court btw.

But that does not help the average repair. Most computer repair. While Rossman might only really get physical repairs, by grandma does to the apple store to get help sending emails. I am pretty sure most repairs are "my computer is too slow", or "I cannot send emails", or "I think I have a virus". software stuff.