Kindle confidentiality and security questions

[Lazer]

Your document security is at it's greatest risk while it's on your computer,especially if you use any unencrypted WiFi..... I really doubt if any hacker has attempted to hack into a Kindle yet (for criminal reasons) since people don't use 'em for bank transactions etc......

L

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by abookreader

It doesn't. But my husband regularly totes around huge briefcases packed with confidential paper. They also are are unencrypted and readable should they be stolen. Keeping the Kindle in his possession isn't all that different than keeping his bag in his possession.

I guess it depends what sort of "confidential" we're talking about. In my line of work, it means "stuff that could damage people or companies if it fell into the wrong hands". The only way it leaves the secure building I work in is on laptops with whole-disk encryption. You do NOT put that kind of stuff on a Kindle.

[steverusson]

Originally Posted by ritef

I have a couple of questions regarding the confidentiality of documents (PDFs) loaded onto a Kindle:

1.
Is it possible to securely load a confidential document onto a Kindle? Can I simply load a document from my computer, in other words, via USB, to the Kindle, without that document ever traveling elsewhere? Will any PDF I load onto my Kindle (say, through Calibre) also be ported somehow to Amazon.com?

2.
I have not yet purchased the Kindle but I’m going to soon. I’m mostly interested in using it as a personal PDF reader. If I decided to return it, is there a guaranteed, safe and secure way to erase PDFs that you’ve loaded onto the Kindle? Can one restore a Kindle to its original state, or will even a post-restore Kindle still contain your document somewhere, just as erased Windows files will remain on your HD (unless they are DBANd and the like) and are often retrievable? I’m curious about text-only PDFs if that matters.

Thank you.

Hi there - I can see you are struggling to get a straight answer on here, so, having very similar concerns, I contacted Kindle Support and they called, talked things through and sent me the following email as confirmation. Hope this helps.

Kindle Suport:

As we discussed, I can confirm for you that any personal document that you transfer on to your Kindle via the USB cable is not stored or sent to any other system or storage facility. The document will be stored locally, only on the Kindle device itself.

Should you ever wish to store any personal documents on the Kindle Cloud, you can rest assured that the protection of customer data such as personal documents is important to us, and accordingly we treat all customer data in accordance with our Privacy Policy and other policies posted on our website.

You can find our Privacy Policy at www.amazon.co.uk/privacy .

Should you ever need to contact us again, you can reach us by chat or phone directly by clicking the Contact Us option in the right-hand column of our Kindle Support pages at

http://www.amazon.co.uk/kindlesupport

When you visit our website and select Contact Us, click on the "Phone" tab, enter your number, and we will call you right back. For chat, please click on the "Chat" tab on the Contact Us help page.

Contacting us through the website allows you to verify security before a call is placed and ensures we have your account information ready when we call you. If you’re unable to take advantage of the Contact Us feature, you can call us directly at Freephone 0800 496 2449 or +44 203 356 6212 if you're calling from outside the U.K.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by steverusson

Hi there - I can see you are struggling to get a straight answer on here, so, having very similar concerns, I contacted Kindle Support and they called, talked things through and sent me the following email as confirmation. Hope this helps.

Actually, after nearly a year's worth of inactivity in this thread, I'm fairly certain the OP has already made up his/her mind on getting a Kindle by now.