The great advantage of on-site destruction is that you can be absolutely sure that the data carriers have indeed been destroyed. After all, you are standing right next to it when the destruction takes place. In fact, there is no chance of human error. And with a good shredder, hard disks are shredded into confetti-sized pieces. Provided the shredder cuts smaller than say 12mm.
But destroying on site with a shredder also has drawbacks:
First, the cost. A mobile shredder installation for hard disks costs an enormous amount of money. This is reflected in the price for destruction, which is usually as much as double the cost based on take away and later destruction. When it comes to disks in computers that you still want to sell, the value of those computers becomes much lower. So even more cost. In a data destruction retrieval, the customer hardly spends any time. But when shredding hard disks on site, the customer is actually expected to be present at the shredding. So if you have a lot of hard disks, it is very important to ask well in advance how fast the mobile shredder is. Our mobile hard disk shredder is lightning fast, but we know colleagues around the country whose equipment is agonizingly slow. The very slowest, without a doubt, is the Maxxeguard.
Then the pros and cons with data destruction based on retrieval and later destruction, this is called “of-site.”
When you have hard disks or other data carriers picked up for destruction, it’s a matter of trust. You just have to believe that the data has indeed been destroyed. And even very nice reports from Blancco wipe software and beautiful certificates do not offer any certainty. Anyone can create a destruction certificate, especially if it is not based on any standard. There are many providers and it is extremely difficult for the customer to determine in advance whether they are dealing with a reliable party. Even if the company that does the data destruction has everything perfectly organized, there are still a number of uncertain factors, especially the factor of human failure, that can cause data to leak out. How big that chance is depends mainly on how well organized the company is. Now again, it is not that an of-site data destruction is necessarily bad. There are indeed some companies in the country that handle this very well and conscientiously and indeed reliably destroy data of-site. Data destruction of-site is super convenient for the customer though. They come by, take everything, and within a few days you have registrations and certificates of data destruction in the mail.
Have your data destroyed or retrieved on site?
That’s a choice the customer has to make. Pick up? Not so expensive and convenience serves man. On-site shredding? Super safe but it takes time for the customer and it’s more expensive. What is very important is that you have to do business really a good company. And this is where the new WEEELABEX standard offers a solution for the customer. This is a new and mandatory certification for companies dealing with discarded hardware and adat destruction. And the certification also includes the process of data destruction. So data destruction is reviewed once a year by an auditor. And at WEEELABEX, the bar is set very high. So high, in fact, that only the very best companies can certify for this standard. Companies that have WEEELABEX always put this on their site, and you can look up for yourself who has it at www.weeelabex.org. So the conclusion of this blog is:
- Retrieval-based data destruction: no problem, provided it is information that is not too sensitive.
- Both on-site and off-site data destruction: only by WEEELABEX companies.