The repair shop asks for your phone PIN: what are your options?

The counter clerk takes your phone, taps the cracked screen and says, “I’ll need your PIN to test it.” You have family photos on there, a few documents, maybe a photo of your passport. You’d like the screen fixed. You’d rather not open everything to a stranger.

Most repairs are routine, and most technicians just want to check that the phone works. Still, you are allowed to ask questions and limit what you share. Our guide on protecting photos before a phone repair goes through the full checklist.

What to do now

Ask whether they need to unlock it. A battery swap often doesn’t. A screen swap needs a quick touch test, which can be done with you watching. Ask what exactly they need, and why.

Back up before you go. If the phone still turns on, make a full backup of everything you can’t replace. On iPhone, that’s an iCloud backup or one on a computer. On Android, it’s your phone’s backup, plus copying photos and files you care about elsewhere. Backups can be old without you noticing, so check the date.

Use the maker’s repair option if there is one. Some phones have a repair mode that locks your data away during service, and iPhone has a step that prepares the phone for service, which varies by iOS version. These change between versions, so read the maker’s current page for your phone before you go.

Otherwise, set a temporary PIN. Change your lock to a PIN you use only for the repair and tell the shop that one. Change it again when you collect the phone. Never give your real PIN, and never your account password.

Sign out of what you can. Signing out of cloud, email and payment apps keeps the technician from landing in them. On many phones you also need to turn off the find-my-phone feature before service; the maker’s page says how.

Remove the SIM and any memory card. They hold your number and sometimes files. If you are replacing the phone instead of repairing it, see selling your old phone.

Get it in writing. Ask for a receipt that lists the phone’s condition and what the shop will do. If the shop says it may erase the phone, ask them to confirm before they do.

Look over it afterward. Check that no unknown accounts or apps were added, and change the temporary PIN straight away.

What doesn’t help

• Hiding photos in the gallery. A hidden album opens with the phone’s unlock, so anyone you give the PIN to can open it.
• Removing your screen lock for the repair. Then anyone can open everything, with no record of who did.
• Trusting a shop because it is nearby. Most are honest. A few aren’t, and you can’t tell which from the counter.
• Skipping the backup because “it’s only a screen”. If the phone is erased, the repair isn’t the problem. The missing backup is.

Where a vault helps

Your phone’s PIN and Silo’s lock are separate. A technician who has your phone PIN still faces Silo’s own PIN, passphrase or face or fingerprint lock, and Silo’s contents are encrypted on the phone. Lock Silo before you hand the phone over; it locks at once when you leave it if you have chosen auto-lock “at once”, and it hides its contents in the app switcher.

The risk is the other direction: if the phone is erased or replaced, the vault goes with it. The vault lives only in the app’s own storage, the phone’s own backup doesn’t copy it, and uninstalling removes it. So export your photos first with Export everything, or keep a backup. Encrypted backup to your own cloud storage is arriving with launch, and needs a recovery phrase of six or more words.