I don't know how prevalent it is. We don't do it at our shop.
None of our techs have the time to waste, and we respect our
customers' privacy.

Every time I read about someone getting prosecuted for something
found on his computer by a repair technician, I wonder about
the stupidity of the perpetrator, and the integrity of the
technician. While snooping around invading the privacy of
his customer, he found something that morally outraged him
enough to report it. It's awfully hypocritical.

The only time you have to look at user's files is if they
ask you to recover data, and in that case they'd expect
you to be looking at it.

James Sweet wrote:

I'm not sure what the surprise is, you'd be hard pressed to find a
computer repair shop where the techs don't poke around a little. That's
why it's common sense to remove sensitive data from a PC before taking
it in for service.