When a business looks to recycle or destroy old hardware, data erasure is always a consideration. Everything you’ve saved on the hardware needs to be entirely removed before it can be sent off for processing; that is, either to be recycled, refurbished or destroyed completely. When dealing with customer data and business-sensitive information, hitting ‘delete’ and emptying your ‘recycle bin’ just doesn’t cut it.
Process’ have been in place for several years that comply with government legislation that involves a software erasure process for data held on all types of hard drives. This is a fully certified erasure process with full certification for compliance purposes, however until now, the only way to erase data from tapes was to shred, degauss or incinerate the media itself, rendering it useless. All three solutions can be found wanting - That was until now.
The only guaranteed option for complete data removal from media is certified tape erasure. Procurri’s Tape Erasure and Reuse Programme is comprehensively guaranteed and not only does it remove all data without trace, importantly it provides as soft copy report for filing with full details: it even allows for the media to be reused later. If that’s not what you need, you can opt to have the data removed AND then the tape thoroughly and irrevocably destroyed too.
As a SWAT / KIT partner, Procurri can erase data in two ways – and both are the industry-leaders for their respective end results.
For data removal before media is potentially available for reuse (SWAT), every metre of tape is run through a custom-built, specially designed, and ultra-precision engineered tape drive. The non-wearing magnetic head removes every trace of readable data whilst keeping the servo tracks intact. For data removal and ultimate tape destruction (KIT), the tape is run through a drive that exposes it to a highly concentrated magnetic field, erasing every bit of data and destroying the servo tracks, rendering the tape entirely unusable and irretrievable. Once complete, a detailed report is supplied to the customer including data such as the amount of times the tape had been drive mounted, the data amounts included and the lifecycle of the tape. The whole process, end-to-end, is available on-site or off-site, dependent on customer preference with all erasure and tape details fed back to the client in soft copy for filing.
The benefits of certified tape erasure are vast. Aside from the fact that your end user’s brand can be truly trusted not to leak any customer or business-sensitive data that could cause harm or have negative consequences, businesses and directors of those businesses have a legal responsibility covering data protection: even in the case of its erasure. Procurri will provide a Certificate of erasure once the process is complete, and this ensures compliance with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) along with ISO 14001, Responsible Recycling R2 and OHSAS 18001. Of course, in the case of hardware being available for reuse, it’s an eco-friendly option – perpetuating the cycle of reduce, recycle and reuse, and offering another impressive feature to Corporate Social Responsibility reporting.
