SAMSUNG

Electronics giant started to introduce “Maintenance Mode” for Galaxy line

After a successful pilot program in Korea, Samsung has started to introduce “Maintenance Mode” to Galaxy devices worldwide to help users protect sensitive data when taking their smartphones in for repair.

This new system should alleviate users' concerns in situations where no one can access or copy their data, even with physical access to the device.

“Our entire lives are on our phones, from credit card information to family photos,” said Samsung Vice President and Head of Security Seungwon Shin in announcing the new feature.

“With maintenance mode, we are giving extra assurance that Galaxy users can preserve their privacy even if they hand over their phone.”

The new mode is available in the settings, in the “Battery and device care” menu. When turned on, the mode is active after the device is restarted. In this way, an auxiliary user account is created on the device, completely isolated from all apps installed by the phone owner, saved data and system files. This makes the photos, documents and messages associated with the owner's account unavailable to the new user.

Samsung still recommends backing up valuable personal data to ensure it can be recovered if the device breaks down during service.

Maintenance mode will allow service technicians to perform any action required in the context of a repair, such as testing device functions, running system apps, downloading software from the Galaxy Store, etc.

When the device is returned to the owner and he enters his account password, the other account, the data created and the apps installed in maintenance mode are automatically deleted.

Maintenance mode won't hit every Galaxy phone in the world right away, as Samsung plans to gradually roll out the new feature. Priority will be given to models from the Samsung Galaxy S21 and S22 series, so they will be the first to get this feature. The rollout of the new feature will continue throughout 2023 on more Galaxy models, but Samsung has yet to announce the list of models that will receive the feature.

mundophone