back to article Google Pixel gets privacy mode to keep your selfies safe from prying repair techs

Google Pixel owners who need to take their devices in for repair now have an option to protect their data from snooping techs in the form of a new "repair mode."  The web giant announced the addition of repair mode to select Pixel devices in a blog post this week, describing it as a simple toggleable method of "protecting …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can't see the UK government liking this one bit.

    (I thought El Reg had a "think of the children" icon ?)

    1. Dinanziame Silver badge
      Childcatcher

      Re: I can't see the UK government liking this one bit.

      They do

    2. Lazlo Woodbine Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: I can't see the UK government liking this one bit.

      You can't add an icon when posting anonymously...

  2. F. Frederick Skitty Silver badge

    Unless it's possible to enable this mode remotely, then it's not a lot of use if the screen is broken, and I suspect that's why most phones need repairing.

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      You can try telling the repair tech that, since it's only hardware, they can swap the screens without any login information, testing by seeing if the lock screen comes up correctly. I'm not sure if they'll accept that, but you can try it. Some other repairs might need them to test things that are only available when the device is running.

      1. ThatOne Silver badge
        Devil

        Chances are the repair tech will simply wipe the phone in this case: "I didn't have the key, so I just smashed the door" kind of way...

    2. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Holmes

      If the phone is locked, then the technician should not be able to get in, which they don't need to do to verify basic screen function. Conversely, I'm hard-pressed to think of phone repairs which would require the technician to have the unlock code.

      1. Yorick Hunt Silver badge
        Trollface

        For some strange reason, the 'phones of good-looking female customers always seem to develop strange faults which require knowledge of the unlock code to diagnose and rectify.

        1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          phones of good-looking female customers always seem to develop strange faults which require knowledge of the unlock code

          If they did that to my wifes' phone all they would get is pictures of cats and dogs. Or interesting plant/bug/fungi.. (and the odd carpet sample - going through the "we really must replace the 26-year old hall and stairs carpet) dance)

          We are both firmly of the "don't take a photo that you wouldn't want a stranger to see" persuasion.. probably because, when we were growing up, getting photos involved giving the film over to strangers to develop..

          1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

            Re: and the odd carpet sample

            The techs might have been interested by the caption about its suitability for the back passage though.

          2. Yorick Hunt Silver badge

            "when we were growing up, getting photos involved giving the film over to strangers to develop"

            That's why Land cameras (for which Polaroid became famous) had a massive following for a couple of decades.

            I found it strange though that I attended a Christmas shindig a few days ago where they'd acquired a batch of modern-day replicas for people to take photos of the event. Looking forward to music being played on cassettes next year ;-)

      2. GB31

        Most phone repairs require access to the basic functionality of the phone as part of the quality assurance. Any physical repair has the possibility of causing another fault for example bending a contact pin of the sim card reader when reassembling the phone case. You want the technician to verify that the phone fully functional and not just that the reported issue is fixed. That being said the technician does not need access to data on the phone but they routinely do access the data. Back my day they would read the txt messages on 2G phones.

      3. Spazturtle Silver badge

        "Conversely, I'm hard-pressed to think of phone repairs which would require the technician to have the unlock code."

        For phone still under warranty they need to download and run the test app otherwise Google won't pay them.

  3. tekHedd

    From repair techs?

    We need a "privacy" mode to protect us from Google.

  4. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

    Senior Politician Mode

    Is needed - where the data is automatically encrypted and backed up to the National Archives - only to be released under the 30-year rule, or, for authorised investigations such as the Covid Inquiry.

    That should address the issue of the people asked for their WhatsApp messages for the Covid Inquiry, the 2 most senior ones came up with "the dog ate it" excuses

  5. DS999 Silver badge

    Why not just erase it?

    If you have it backed up to the cloud, just erase it as a new device and hand that to them. Once they repair it you restore from the cloud and you're good to go. That's what I'd do if I ever needed to have my iPhone repaired.

    The potential flaw in the above scenario is it requires your phone to be in working order to do the erasure, but the same is true for being to able to enable use of this secondary partition scheme. But I suppose in 99% of the cases it will be a broken screen or a battery replacement, rather than a completely dead device.

    1. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

      Re: Why not just erase it?

      A lazy technician's favorite trick is to keep factory resetting your phone until you stop returning for repairs. Google only allows themselves to perform backups and they don't work. It's the tech's 2 minutes of effort to erase your phone vs your hours to restore app settings and 2FA codes, and maybe a month for FedEx shipping.

      Privacy mode is supposed to boot clean so you can prove that your phone isn't malfunctioning from user data.

  6. Zack Mollusc

    Brace yourself...

    ...I have had a game-changeing radical idea! How about having a REMOVABLE memory device, so you would just need to pull that out and you would have all your pictures, downloads, apps and everything safe. I am thinking of something like a USB stick, but you could probably make it even smaller.

    1. ThatOne Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Brace yourself...

      Like an SD card?...

  7. Pete Sdev
    Meh

    Not new

    My phone running Android 13 already has a maintenance mode for exactly this use case. Suspect it's a Samsung addition though. Mid/low level Galaxy.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not new

      As detailed in the third paragraph from the end of the article...

  8. Dave@Home

    Pixel diagnostics only available in the US

    Despite what their own page says, you get a warning it's US only and kicks you back out.

  9. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    I wonder how many travellers...

    ...will think it is a good idea to invoke Repair Mode to try escaping surveillance.

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