Logic board identity theft help

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Please, please help this damsel in distress.

I have been a victim of identity theft before so am extremely paranoid (rightly or wrongly) about it happening again. I have a question which I would love an answer to.

I've recently sold my Macbook Pro 2009. Before I did this I removed my hard drive and installed a brand new one. My question is this...

Could any of my data from my old hard drive (photos, web history, documents) have passed into the logic board and stayed there?

In particular I'm thinking about the Nvram or SMC. I know these things control backlight/fan etc, but is there ANY conceivable way this could have happened?

My paranoia is that the info that made its way across to the logic board (if indeed it did) would have then 'remigrated' to the new hard drive.

Thanks in advance,

Kelsie.
 
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2023-14" M3max MBPro, 64GB/1TB, iPhone 15 Pro, Watch Ultra
No. Not possible. None of the components you listed store your personal information. They store information about how to run the physical components but they do not store your personal information. Removing the hard drive removed any potential personal information.

Lisa
 
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MacInWin

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And if you really are paranoid about identity theft, using your name as your screen name probably isn't a good idea.
 
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By the way, I've been told the NVRAM saves the wifi password for access in Internet Recovery.

Is anyone aware of anything else which might be saved by the logic board?
 
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Evidently your wifi information is stored on the recovery partition and removing the hard drive eliminates that. The NVRAM also seems to store wifi information too. The infinitesimal possibility of that information being used by anyone to access your home internet is, in my opinion, not an issue but..... The good news is you can erase that by resetting the NVRAM:

http://apple.stackexchange.com/ques...g-the-wifi-password-on-the-recovery-partition

As for anything else being stored on any other part - no. The logic board is not intended for storage of your personal data. Things like how to run components or recover itself by accessing Apple for an operating system will be stored. Network information would be all it needs for that.

The thing is - once the new person accessed their network, the information in the NVRAM would be replaced with the new networks information. But resetting the NVRAM won't hurt.

Lisa
 

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