In a time when just about everything seems to be stored in the cloud, physical media can seem downright quaint. Things like CDs and tapes used to be part of how everyone did business. Today, many businesses probably don’t even own any equipment that could play an audio tape. But that doesn’t mean your old physical media is actually obsolete. Media shredding is just as important a part of your data destruction policy as paper shredding.
Media Shredding and the Link to Data Security
From a business owner’s perspective, data security is probably the top reason why shredding hard drives, CDs, DVDs, tapes, X-rays and other kinds of physical media matters. Best practice is to destroy any object that is capable of holding sensitive data, even if you don’t think anyone outside your business could get their hands on it. Maybe it’s unlikely that someone would find the audio tapes from your business’s old answering machine in a Dumpster, be able to play them and learn information they could use to damage your business or customers. But you should still dispose of those tapes like that’s a likely outcome, because it’s not an impossible one.
The same is true when you’re disposing of obsolete hard drives or other media that you’ve attempted to wipe data from. Just because you used a computer program to write over the data or drilled holes in a hard drive doesn’t mean the data is truly gone for good. Data thieves are tech-savvier than most of us and may be able to recover data from damaged tapes or “wiped” hard drives. Shredding is the only way to know for sure that your physical media has been completely destroyed, along with all the sensitive data it holds. It’s easier and cheaper to shred all your old media than deal with a data breach caused by lax data destruction policies.
Two More Reasons Why Media Shredding Matters
First, compliance. There’s currently no federal law requiring all U.S. businesses to destroy sensitive data they collect from customers. However, businesses in some industries and locations are subject to stringent data destruction rules, such as HIPAA (for healthcare organizations that have access to patients’ medical data) and GDPR (for businesses that process personal data belonging to residents of the European Union). Even if you’re not sure whether your business is technically required by law to destroy sensitive data, having a blanket shredding policy for all media ensures you’re covered.
Second, media shredding has environmental benefits compared to putting these items in the trash and letting them end up in landfills. Some of the components in your old physical media can’t be recycled efficiently so they will ultimately end up being thrown away. But other components can be recovered and recycled, like the precious metals used to make hard drives or the plastic and metal casings that are used in many types of media. Physical media may also contain harmful chemicals that we don’t want leaching into our water and soil while they sit in landfills.
Choosing the Right Media Shredding Service
Competitive pricing and convenient, reliable service are always going to be the top factors driving your decision when choosing a media shredding service. A few other things we’d recommend looking for include:
- NAID AAA certification. NAID is the standard-setting body for the U.S. shredding industry. When you see “AAA” certification, you know that the shredding service is compliant with all data protection laws, its facilities have proper security protocols in place, its employees have been screened, etc. (Learn more about NAID certification here.)
- An established history and reputation. Shredding services can’t last long if they cut corners or take risks with customers’ private data. If you’re going to trust a company to properly manage your business’s sensitive information, you’re going to want to know that it has a lot of loyal repeat customers from businesses like yours.
- The option to witness shredding. It’s not always feasible for a shredding service to just invite customers in if they show up unannounced. But if your shredding service refuses to let you arrange to witness the destruction of your materials, you might wonder why they’re not willing to be transparent.
How is Media Shredding Done?
While every shredding service has its own policies, here’s a look at how Northeast Data Destruction provides media shredding services:
- The customer requests pick-up services and our staff transports their media in one of our locked and GPS-tracked vehicles. Or, customers can arrange to drop off their obsolete materials at our facility for a reduced fee.
- In our secure NAID AAA certified facility, we sort the collected materials and separate items that can be disassembled for recycling or those that may need special handling.
- Media materials are fed into our industrial hard drive shredder. It can destroy as many as 1,800 hard drives per hour and everything is ripped into pieces no wider than 3/4 inch.
- Our sister company Miller Recycling helps dispose of both the recyclable and landfill-bound waste we’ve shredded.
- We provide the customer with a Certificate of Destruction after shredding is complete, including a list of serial numbers of any drives that were destroyed. The customer can keep this certificate for their records in case they’re ever audited or involved in a data breach and need to prove they follow data destruction best practices.
Need Help Managing Media Shredding?
Northeast Data Destruction has been NAID AAA certified since 2008, and we’re proud of the reputation we’ve built as a trustworthy shredding partner for the businesses we serve. Our full range of services includes media shredding, paper shredding and off-spec product shredding. We’re here to make it convenient and affordable for your business to securely destroy its obsolete materials. We welcome your questions about media shredding, or anything related to shredding—Contact me today!