Imagine the panic if your laptop or other digital apparatus was stolen. First you’d probably think of the monetary value and justify simply replacing the device. After a few days you’d come to the realization that pretty much anything you did on it was stored in memory. Your personal pictures and documents are available to the thief.

Last week a customer called to report losing her laptop. Somewhere in her travels she remembers putting the laptop down and not being able to find it when she wanted. She used the computer for all of her taxes and personal banking. I was called to find out if there was any way to remotely wipe the data.

Everything we do electronically is stored in one way or another on our electronic devices. No matter if we save the documents or not, other trace elements remain hidden in the operating system. There will always be stored data somewhere from everything we do. We, as computer users, need to take extra steps to eliminate excess stores of data.

Purging excess data has become vitally important to limit leaks. Smart criminals aren’t going after the plastic and metal that make up a device, they’re going after data stored in memory. To a smart criminal having your bank account information and stored passwords is extremely valuable. On the street a stolen laptop is worth $40.00, but the data stored on the hard drive could be as valuable as the owner.

There are a few things we can do to prevent our information from getting into the wrong hands. We, as users of the equipment, need to take responsibility for keeping our devices clean. Each and every one of us needs to spend a few minutes every week and maintain our electronic information.

First and foremost is not storing personal information on permanent storage on the device. If you use tax software to do your taxes then the final documents need to be saved off the computer. In other words, move the tax files to an external hard drive and send the original to the recycle bin.

Second, your computer or tablet shouldn’t also double as your password store. Keep passwords in your noggin where they belong. Even writing passwords on a little slip of paper and tucking them into your wallet is better than letting your browser remember them. Passwords to bank accounts are fairly easy to find for someone who knows where to search.

The final thing we should all be doing is cleaning our slack space. Data we look at and then delete can be retained in the free space of a device for years. With the right software and basic equipment anyone can retrieve that information and very quickly assemble it into a usable format. Utilities are freely available that can wipe the free space of a hard drive.

Passwords on a laptop are pretty worthless for someone who really wants access to your information. The only purpose a password really serves is keeping someone from using your computer. Microsoft and Apple have built-in hard drive encryption as an option, but either make the computer or device significantly slower.

Luckily most thieves aren’t smart and take the bird in hand over learning how to retrieve and use data. Most criminals are interested in wiping out the information as quickly as possible. Take it from me, the types of data people store on computers and portable devices is disturbing. The best theft insurance you can buy costs you ten minutes a week.

(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner.  You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)