Studies on Security Threats in Waste Mobile Phone Recycling Supply Chain in India

The presence of different metals and rare earth elements in the smart phones have made waste mobile phone recycling economically suitable. In order to maintain the equilibrium of resource exploitation and enhance resource efficiency, it is important to recycle mobile sustainably. Increasing environmental and data loss threats have enforced several policies to increase the recycling rate. Despite all, a small fraction of waste mobile phones are recycled properly and a significant amount mobile phones are refurbished and repaired which enters the second-hand market. The secondhand market is a critical node in the supply chain of waste mobile phone. The data security issues arise from this area and it varies with the amount of time it spends in the repairing zone. A lot of valuable and sensitive data are saved in storage units of a mobile phone. Improper disposal of waste mobile phone can lead to potential threat of exposing personal information from the devices, including logged in profile details of social networking sites, emails, personal messages, photos etc. This can lead to cyber risks including identity theft, data tampering, information disclosure etc. which may have higher social impact. General issues with data security from ewaste have been reported. Studies focusing on threats from used, lost or improperly discarded mobile phones are scant. In this study, we identify such issues pertaining in the supply chain of waste mobile phones. Possible solutions have been proposed to address these issues. A supply-chain based framework has been proposed which can serve as a prima facie towards development of a detailed solution architecture.