Choosing a new pizza place or dry cleaner is as simple as spending a few minutes on Yelp or asking a coworker for a recommendation. Choosing a data destruction company for your business’s needs isn’t nearly as simple. The stakes are incredibly high – if the company you pick doesn’t value security or puts inexperienced workers in charge, your company’s sensitive data could be exposed. Avoid costly mistakes by asking tough questions of a data destruction company before any work begins.
What Certifications Do You Have?
Checking on a data destruction company’s certifications is a good way to weed out the disreputable providers. Choose a company that has NAID AAA Certification. NAID (National Association for Information Destruction) offers a voluntary certification program, so only companies that have high security and ethical standards request certification. Auditors make unannounced site visits so certified companies have to stay in compliance with data protection regulations at all times.
The certification process also involves a three-level employee background screening, which verifies that no worker with a history of data theft or related crimes can handle sensitive information.
How Finely Do You Shred Things?
It’s highly unlikely that thieves will recover your shredded documents, hard drives, employee badges, etc. and try to pull data from the pieces. But “unlikely” isn’t the same as “impossible,” so ask a data destruction service to explain its shred sizes before committing. The smaller the pieces it creates, the less data could conceivably be pulled from the pieces.
What Happens to the Shreds?
After your company’s sensitive papers and devices are destroyed, what happens to the resulting shreds? A reputable data destruction service will be transparent about how it disposes of destroyed assets. Especially if your organization strives to be environmentally responsible, knowing whether your destroyed documents and drives are recycled or landfilled is important.
What Are Your Security Protocols?
How are documents and devices transported between a client’s location and the shredding facility? Can the transport containers be locked, and who can unlock them? How many workers have access to a client’s data? If a client’s sensitive data is stored overnight in the facility, where is it kept? What kind of training and experience do workers have? Has there ever been a security breach at the shredding facility? Do you have alarm and surveillance systems in place? These are all fair questions to ask before committing to a data destruction service.
How Do We Know Everything is Destroyed?
Does the company allow clients to witness the destruction process? Can it provide a certificate of destruction, plus logs with the serial numbers of the devices that are destroyed? If industry regulations or state laws require that you protect certain types of data, having proof of destruction is critically important in case your company is ever audited.
Northeast Data Destruction welcomes your questions because we’re confident in our secure and efficient system. Our facility is monitored 24 hours a day, our equipment can quickly and thoroughly destroy devices of all kinds and we’ve earned our NAID AAA Certification. Contact us today to get the answers you need.