Samsung

Samsung contract requires repair shops to share customer data, restricts repairs

Ben Schoon | May 24 2024 - 10:15 am PT

According to a leaked contract, Samsung has been requiring third-party repair shops to share customer data with Samsung.

The ability to get your broken smartphone repaired has been seemingly picking up steam in recent years, and a big part of that has been the wider availability of official parts to smaller repair shops. Samsung has been expanding the availability of official parts for a while, but that hasn’t come without a trade-off, it seems.

404 Media reports, citing a leaked contract, that Samsung has strict requirements for third-party repair shops getting official parts, and includes handing over a whole lot of customer data.

Apparently, Samsung requires third-party repair shops that it works with to hand over customer name, contact information, and complaint data with Samsung directly. This data, according to the contact, is reportedly to be uploaded around the time of repair on a daily basis.

This also includes “immediately” informing Samsung of any customers who have had their phones repaired with third-party parts and “disassembling” the device in question, effectively destroying it.

The contract reads in part:

Company shall immediately disassemble all products that are created or assembled out of, comprised of, or that contain any Service Parts not purchased from Samsung (with the exception of those Service Parts described above) and shall immediately notify Samsung in writing of the details and circumstances of any unauthorized use or misappropriation of any Service Part for any purpose other than pursuant to this Agreement. Samsung may terminate this Agreement if these terms are violated.

Beyond sharing customer data, the contract limits third-party repair shops from “board-level repairs” which require soldering. And Samsung also requires these shops to get and maintain certification from “WISE,” which costs shops $200/year and funds an organization that is part of CTIA, which has been noted to fight right-to-repair movements.

This news came out right as iFixit, a company focused on technology repairs, ended its partnership with Samsung citing the unnecessarily high cost of repair parts and Samsung’s continued practices that do not align with right-to-repair.