Important Federal Data Destruction Requirements

When it comes to data security, the dangers of e-waste are not to be ignored. Properly taking care of e-waste is a crucial part of data security for a variety of reasons. Often, businesses focus all of their attention on securing live data stored on the cloud or working computers, and they forgot about all data stored on no longer used electronic devices. Even when files from e-waste are deleted, the information is still stored on the hard drive making it particularly susceptible for this data to be retrieved. Luckily, there are federal data destruction requirements that guard against identifying data falling into the wrong hands.

Due to the increasingly adept technology in recovering data, it is becoming more and more important to be aware of the dangers of e-waste. Data recovery techniques are routinely used in recovering data stored on devices that have been crushed, burned, submerged in water, and more. If data can be so quickly recovered from devices, it is imperative to keep identifying data secure. Some of the federally mandated best practices for making deleted data irrecoverable includes overwriting, wiping data, and the physical destruction of data.

Overwriting data is a process where, mainly, the software is used to rewrite new data over old data several times. The software overwrites so many times that the original data is finally unreadable. Wiping data is a process that uses a strong magnet to affect the area of an electronic device that stores information. This magnet scrambles this process and information can no longer be stored or retrieved from the device. The final best practice for e-waste is the physical destruction of data. In this case, hard drives and other electronic devices that have identifying data stored on them are physically destroyed and pulverized. This process 100% secures that your data will never fall into the wrong hands as the device is destroyed.