Learn how to protect your conversations in case of theft or robbery. Following these steps can be ideal for ensuring the privacy of your data.
WhatsApp is one of the most popular apps in the world. In Brazil alone, it has over 169 million users. The app is widely used by people who want to interact with friends and family, as well as clients, bosses and company suppliers. In other words, in addition to just being fun, the app can also be used to resolve professional issues.
Because they contain a lot of private information, we must be careful to keep these conversations safe, especially if our cell phone is stolen, lost or misplaced. Therefore, if this happens to you, learn how to deactivate your account on the app and protect your conversations and data from potential scammers.
Robberies and thefts
In the state of São Paulo alone, the number of cell phone robberies and thefts reached 178,618 in the first six months of this year. Recently, the civil police even dismantled a gang who operated in the state and seized 312 cell phones from his boss, who had a scheme to unlock the devices in order to carry out banking transactions. The devices, after going through this process, were sent to several countries in Africa.
In these cases of theft or robbery, it is important to follow some steps that can prevent criminals from accessing data, whether banking data or private conversations, as well as exchanging photos, videos and other documents. Once they have access to this type of material, these people can blackmail the victim, or even expose their data, in addition to being able to use the money and documents for online purchases and much more.
What to do in these cases?
To reduce the risk of having your conversations accessed, contact your telephone operator and ask them to block your SIM card. After that, buy a new SIM card and ask the operator to reactivate the original number on this new card.
With a cell phone and the new SIM card, log into WhatsApp and confirm the number. Wait for the data to be updated and that's it. With this procedure, when you activate the account on the new device, it will be deactivated on the cell phone that was lost or stolen.
It is important to be aware that this process only works if the user does it within 30 days of the incident. If this is not done, the account will be permanently deactivated, with no chance of recovery.
Other procedures
In these cases, it is also important to contact your financial institution and request that your accounts be blocked, preventing third parties from using them for transfers, purchases and withdrawals. This will allow the bank to keep an eye on any transactions and prevent them from being made.
It is also important to file a police report, so that the police are aware and can do their job. When filing the report, you must provide the device's IMEI, which, once blocked, can no longer be used.
If you don't know the IMEI, just open your phone and type *#06# in the call area. The device will then inform you of the IMEI, and you can write it down and save it.
If you own an insurance For the device, when registering the police report, you can activate it, so that the insurance company can start the insurance process, either by returning part of the amount or offering a new device. For this process, it is important to have the police report registered.
Furthermore, with the report, if the police find your device, it can be returned. Therefore, make the report, as it is extremely important.
