Patent ID: 8041340

Claim:
A personal information protecting method for protecting personal information saved in a software program installed on a mobile terminal or in a module insertable into and removable from the mobile terminal, comprising: locking or unlocking the software program installed on the mobile terminal or the module inserted in the mobile terminal depending on a state of the mobile terminal; maintaining the module in a locked state or an unlocked state when the module is removed from the mobile terminal after the module inserted in the mobile terminal is locked or unlocked; storing identification information of a first mobile terminal in the module when the module, which is in the locked state, is inserted into the first mobile terminal; when the module in the locked state is inserted in the first mobile terminal, unlocking the module since the identification information stored in the module is coincident with the identification information of the first mobile terminal; and when the module in the locked state is inserted in a second mobile terminal that has different identification information from the first mobile terminal, maintaining the locked state of the module since the identification information stored in the module is not coincident with the identification information of the second mobile terminal.