About a half the total number of second-hand mobile handsets sold in the United Kingdom has been reported to be containing personal data as the consumers more often than not forget to erase them before selling.

According to a survey conducted by CPP, the popular data protection firm, about 54 per cent of the second-hand handsets sold in the country's market contained sensitive data that belonged to the previous owners.

CPP, which takes measures for protecting against fraud had purchased thirty five handsets and fifty SIM cards from eBay, the popular online auction site.
The company claimed that it had found out 247 pieces of personal data in the form of email, text messages, bank details and photos of the previous users.

A survey conducted by the company across a couple of thousand people in the United Kingdom revealed that more than half of them who purchased the second-hand handset found data belonging to the previous users. About 81 per cent of the respondents claimed that they had erased the data from the mobile phones before their selling those.