It’s a scary thing leaving your device at a repair shop. While you’re having your device fixed up, you’ll sometimes need to unlock it. This means that there’s the possibility of the employee accessing your private data and files.
Thankfully, Samsung made Repair Mode for Galaxy devices
In order to bring some peace of mind to Galaxy users, Samsung introduced (via Sam Mobile) Repair Mode. This mode will actually lock down selected data on your phone so that it can not be accessed by the repair technician. For some repairs, certain apps will need to be accessible to the technician. For example, if you’re getting the camera module replaced, you’d want them to access your camera to test it out. The issue is that opening the camera gives them access to your photos and videos. So, this is where Repair Mode comes in. When you go into your settings and go to the Battery and Device Care section, you’ll be able to enable Repair Mode. Before you do, you’ll have the option to choose what you want to lock down, exactly. You’ll be able to choose messages, photos, apps, accounts, etc. When you select what you want to lock down, your phone will restart. Upon logging in to your phone, you’ll only see the data that you’ve not selected to lock down. If you want to bring your phone back to normal, you’ll just need to restart the phone and authenticate via your fingerprint or pattern. Since this feature needs to be activated on the phone, you won’t be able to activate it if your screen is severely damaged or if the phone is just not working. You’ll just have to take your chances at that point. Also, there’s the concern of the technician being able to bypass Repair Mode. There are times when you’d need to give the repair technician the credentials to sign into your phone. Could these credentials be used to take your phone out of Repair Mode? We’ll have to wait on more information on that.
It’s gradually rolling out
Right now, this feature is rolling out to a limited number of users. It’s available for Galaxy S21 users in Korea. This will come to more markets as time goes on, so you should be on the lookout for the feature.
