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A compliant solution that meets the needs of both data and environmental protective legislation, while protecting your company’s reputation and financial health, is essential when planning the responsible decommissioning of your IT assets.
Planning retirement?
As with our own human lives, within the scope of managing the lifespan of your IT assets, it makes sense to plan the retirement of hard- and software and the data they process and hold, with care and forethought. Most IT assets, including in the seemingly most innocuous peripherals such as keyboards, mice and screens, process and contain at least residual data. High data volumes are found in end-user computers, communications and output devices, removable media and components such as USB drives and memory sticks, and magnetic tapes, and servers.
Table of contents
Wherever there is data, even a trace, you need to consider how to protect it.
The National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) guidance highlights that
- obsolete IT assets should be kept in a secure place while awaiting disposal
- third parties involved in their destruction are appropriately set up, certified and experienced in asset and data destruction
- most items require a stringent chain of custody process to keep them safe during transit
- all movement should include a tightly documented audit trail that ends in a proof of destruction.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the detail of this statutory process.
What are the risks for businesses in retiring IT assets?
Starkly put, risks to your business during the process of decommissioning, disposal and destruction include the possibilities of data theft, extortion, environmental, reputational and financial damage.
With malicious intent, unprotected, unmanaged obsolete IT assets can be accessed and cause harm to customer, colleague and business alike through the theft and leverage of the sensitive information they hold. GDPR UK legislation enforces the correct secure disposal and destruction processes for data and data-bearing assets and imposes punitive fines, and likely media exposure, for businesses who fail to make the grade.
In terms of environmental risk, data-bearing devices are manufactured from a range of metals and chemicals, including fossil fuels, mercury, lead and microplastics, that are harmful if they are allowed to sit and leach into the soil surrounding landfill sites. In addition, many of those materials are eminently recyclable and can be re-used for several rounds of manufacture. The WEEE Directive legislates for the most responsible, least harmful routes to disposing of IT assets correctly, with financial penalties for those businesses found to have failed in their responsibilities.
How should I handle IT asset destruction?
With the care your customers, colleagues and business community expect from a responsible, well-informed, compliant business!
Mitigation is the key. Full compliance with the stipulations contained within the GDPR UK and the WEEE Directive around physical data-bearing assets creates the basis for good working practice and demonstrates your responsible attitude to everyone you deal with.
IT asset destructionWhat are the key steps of the secure IT asset destruction process?
Get ready at your workplace
- Draw up an inventory of your assets.
- Check data destruction needs, eg, high-level security may mandate data erasure before asset destruction.
- Contact a professional, accredited IT asset destruction business, like Restore Datashred, to discuss options such as on-site for a process you can witness, or off-site, at one of our secure destruction facilities, and tailor and set up the service you want.
- Maintain the security of your data and physical assets by storing all items in a lockable location while awaiting collection.
- Schedule your collection.
Entrust co-responsibility to professionals like Restore Datashred
- Collection, by security-vetted collections operatives in GPS-tracked vehicles, and initiation of a secure, audited chain of custody.
- Secure data and asset destruction in our modern shredding machines, either on-site in one of our specialist mobile shredding vehicles or off-site at one of our destruction centres, to BS EN 15713 standard shreds so that data is certifiably unrecoverable.
- Certificate of destruction supplied for your records after every secure shredding transaction that completes and signs off the unbroken chain of custody.
- Environmentally responsible recycling of plastics, glass and metals, for example, and disposal of materials that may not be recyclable – guaranteed.
What are the standards of secure IT asset and data destruction?
At Restore Datashred, we operate in line with NPSA (National Protective Security Authority) standards, delivering secure, compliant shredding services for sensitive and classified information, encompassing IT asset destruction.
We have worked to achieve industry and business standards and accreditations because they support information management and data protection, and environmental impact mitigation, as follows.
Our accreditations
ISO 9001 quality management systems standard
Within this, Restore Datashred holds the BS EN 15713 European Shredding Standard (for best practice in end-to-end destruction process, including shred particle size for seven security levels across three protection areas) and BS 7858 Staff Security Vetting Standard.
ISO14001 environmental management standard
This means our shredding processes help minimise negative impacts on the environment while complying fully with laws and regulations surrounding recycling and disposal.
ISO27001 information security management standard
Demonstrates Restore Datashred’s commitment to security and data protection, within which all our employees are rigorously vetted in accordance with BS 7858.
Memberships
Of the British Security Industry Association (BSIA), the United Kingdom Secure Shredding Association (UKSSA) and i-Sigma demonstrate our care and concern with data protection and security throughout the shredding process.
Environment Agency licence holder in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as a professional member of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management – all bodies concerned with promoting excellence in sustainability and innovation.
Find out moreEnd exposure to bad actors by setting up a watertight chain of custody for your obsolete data-bearing devices with a professional, accredited shredding business like Restore Datashred. Earn extra ESG points for selecting the most sustainable option with our commitment to recycling as much of your shredded materials as possible.
IT asset destruction firmly allied with security and sustainability
Meets GDPR UK and WEEE Directive requirements
Whether your need for asset and data destruction arises out of an office move, an upgrade, business closure or data purge, ensuring the safety of all the sensitive information held and processed by these data-bearing devices is key in upholding your customers’ confidence in your reputation for good practice. Additionally, selecting the sustainable option of asset and data shredding, after which shreds are recycled where possible and responsibly disposed of when not, can form a key stone of your business’ push to achieving your ESG goals.
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