Quitting a job? Don’t leave foolish footprints

 An offer of a new job comes with deserved excitement, but it requires a thoughtful transition. You need to meticulously scrub of your office technology devices before handing them back to your employer. Doing so ensures that you do not leave behind personal, sensitive information.

When a company gives you a device to use for work, chances are someone had that device before you, and someone else will have it after you. Your work computer most likely contains a plethora of personal information, some of which could be embarrassing if it got into someone else’s hands.

As a rule, it’s advisable to keep your personal files separate from your work files, but our digital world often weaves together our personal and professional life, making it almost impossible to keep the two apart.

Digital files

If you’re leaving an organisation, make sure you back up your personal digital files such as photos, tax returns, payslips, bills, CV and scanned certificates, or files you might not want others to have access to. Then, purge them from your computer before you hand back your laptop.

You can store those files on a cloud account such as Dropbox or Google Drive or on an external portable drive. Do not forget to empty the “recycle bin” or “trash” if you’re on a Mac after deleting files. Without emptying the “trash,” the files are still accessible; they are still on your computer.

Delete information on apps where you share personal info that you don’t want to get into the wrong hands. Such apps may include Zoom, Slack, Skype and iMessage. While you’re at it, delete any apps you downloaded for personal reasons, such as Spotify for personal entertainment.

Your web browser curates troves of information about you, including your passwords and the history of websites you visit—erase that history. You can do so by going to “Tools,” “Options,” and then choose “clear your recent history.”

Security tab

While you’re in there, click the Security tab and uncheck “remember passwords for sites,” which you shouldn’t have turned on in the first place anyway. Also, unsubscribe to any newsletters and emails that have been coming to your work email. You can change the address to your personal email if you would like to maintain those subscriptions.

If you have a company mobile phone, clean it as well. Comb through the phone, uninstalling apps, deleting your text threads, and erasing your voicemail messages. A factory reset does all this in one swoop, saving you time.

Above all, remember that leaving behind personal information could jeopardise your future employment should you want to return to the company. Importantly, you don’t want to leave behind information or pictures that could someday find their way to social media and tarnish your reputation or lead to identity theft.

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