Patent ID: 8761728

Claim:
A method for an at least partial erasure of data stored in a mobile equipment, the method comprising: determining of need for erasing memory content of a mobile equipment of a mobile station only on the basis of checking a unique equipment identity of the mobile equipment performed periodically or in direct response to a request for registration or a new service from the mobile station, the checking being performed in a mobile communication network and carried out on the basis of comparison of the unique equipment identity to equipment identities included in an equipment register, forming, in response to the network element providing mobile communication services receiving from an equipment register element information, according to which the mobile equipment that has contacted the mobile communication network is defined as barred in the equipment register, a message to be sent from the mobile communication network to the mobile station for erasing the memory content of the mobile equipment, said message being a signaling message of a mobility management protocol from the network element to the mobile station in response to a signaling message from the mobile station and comprising an indicator of an erasure command, the erasure command being in a specific field of said message, said message being a CM Service Reject message or Location update Reject message, transmitting said message from the mobile communication network to the mobile station, receiving said message in the mobile station, detecting need for an at least partial erasure of the memory content in response to the reception of said message for erasing the memory content of the mobile equipment; providing a control unit for controlling the erasure, said control unit being configured to select at least one subsection of the memory of the mobile equipment to be erased and to overwrite the selected subsections of the memory with random data multiple times; and erasing at least part of the memory content of the mobile equipment, wherein said at least part of the memory content that is erased includes predefined subsections of a non-volatile memory of the mobile equipment.