Privacy policy Our Absolute Committment
It takes only a few minutes of research on Google to arrive at this disturbing conclusion: when you have your computer serviced at the corner computer store, by the nerd herd, or even your local "computer guy," it is almost certain that they will snoop through your hard drive, looking for private data, emails, or even (they hope) some salacious photos or videos. Who doesn’t have pictures, videos, emails, or documents they wouldn’t want other people to see? This is like having someone over to work on your house, but they take the opportunity to look through your closets, nightstand, dresser drawers, etc. If you find that hard to believe then check out the following links:
July 29, 2010: Woman's nude photos stolen by Dell service technician.
July 7, 2010: Survey results show: 67% of IT professionals admit to snooping data
November 14, 2004: No Privacy Guarantee on Computer Repairs
June 29, 2010: Repair shop finds kiddie porn
July 17, 2009: Man arrested after Best Buy techs find child pornography on laptop
January 16, 2008: Best Buy's Geek Squad Finds Child Porn on Janitor's Computer, Janitor Arrested
April 14, 2007: PC Techs Find Child Porn; Police Search For Man
The first few articles really highlight the exact nature of the problem: computer techs searching customers' hard drives and helping themselves to whatever they find. Customers' personal and intimate photos and videos have ended up on the Internet because of the activities of unscrupulous computer techs; and once they're on the Internet, they are there forever!
What's interesting about the child pornography cases is that the unethical, and often illegal, behavior of these computer techs is over-looked because of what they found. But it is clearly standard practice for these techs to search through their clients' hard drives. In fact, if you read the comments section in the article about the Sheboygan man, you will find this entry from a computer tech (this is partially excerpted on our main page):
Sheboyganwi wrote: "Being a computer tech myself, I think the comments here are quite interesting. First, to address the 1st Amendment issue: The individual surrendering the computer for service waives his right to privacy when he brings the PC in for repair. There are all kinds of things the user can do to protect himself against this sort of "intrusion" if he indeed wants to KEEP the content private. File security, separate logins for the technician, etc. The user does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when he hands over the PC along with the administrator password. To further that point, he does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy if the account or directories in question lack password protection altogether."
Basically, what he's saying, is that if you don't have the knowledge to secure your data from prying eyes, it's your fault and your problem. This is a reprehensible and unacceptable attitude! Not only does this invasion of privacy lead to people's private photos and home movies ending up on the Internet, but it's a fair bet this also contributes to cases of identity theft.
With Sentinel Computers, you get a guarantee in writing that we will never invade the privacy of your data, and we will never divulge anything we see while working on your system. In fact, we will never even discuss what work was done, and we give every client a written Non-Disclosure Agreement to make our guarantee legally binding.
If you don't choose to give us the privilege of your business, then please remember this: if you do business with anyone who will have unrestricted access to your computer and/or your data, make sure to ask them about their privacy policy. Don't be embarassed to ask for a guarantee in writing.
Please email any questions or comments to: info@sentinelcomputers.com