Motorola Mobility said that it recently learned that around 100 out of a batch of 6,200 refurbished tablets sold by online retailer Woot.com between October and December of last year contained personal information of the previous owners.
“The information that may be accessible to the purchasers of the impacted refurbished tablets may include any information that the original user elected to store on the tablet. It is possible that users might have stored photographs and documents. They may have also stored user names and passwords for email and social media accounts, as well as other password-protected sites and applications”, the company said in a release.
The company did not explain why the personal information was not wiped from the refurbished tablets before they were resold.
Motorola is offering customers who returned Xoom tablets between March and October 2011 a free two-year subscription to Experian’s ID protection service. The company said that customers who performed a factory data reset prior to retuning the device are not affected by the breach.
In addition, the company is asking customers who purchased the refurbished Xoom tablets from Woot.com between October and December 2011 to contact the company to determine if their tablet was one of those that contained former owner information.
“Motorola sincerely regrets and apologizes for any inconvenience this situation has caused the affected customers. Motorola is committed to rigorous data protection practices in order to protect its customers, and will continue to take the necessary steps to achieve this objective”, the company said.