It Disposal

Data and security are a huge concern in the workplace. Not only do individuals have to protect their private information in today’s ever advancing super information highway, so do businesses. Not only do companies decommission thousands of pieces of personal computer hardware from the office each year but it was n in recent polls and surveys that only a small percentage of sixty one percent actually data wipe all the hardware they throw out. That’s only a little more than half the companies around the world. Not a large sum if you examine just how many companies we are talking about.

It is important that you make sure all your personal and sensitive data is wiped from your hard drives before disposal of your equipment. If companies fail to do this not only do they open themselves up for attack from persons who may fall into possession of the secured data but also companies open their clients up to fraud and other malicious cyber threats.

Companies who do not take the necessary measures to wipe their data actually violate the Data Protection Act. The Data Protection Act was an act of Parliament passed in the United Kingdom in 1998. Much later the United States followed with the Data Protection Directive. So not only does not disposing of your computer equipment open you to assault but also can open your company to fines and further legal action.

If you think the sixty one percent was bad for companies who can attest to wiping their old computers before disposal, only forty three percent of IT decision makers can account for the location of their discard computers and hardware. Each year there is a minimum of seventy five percent of e-waste, discarded computer electronics, which is equal to eight million tons that end up in landfills on an annual basis. This eight million is believed to be the forty three percent of unaccounted for computers and hardware which have not been disposed of properly.

It is essential that companies begin improving the strengths and measures put into their Internet Technology (IT) disposal methods. Thirty three percent of the United Kingdom’s largest companies claim they have decommissioned computers without proper memory wipes and also cannot account for their fate. If companies do not stop and restructure their IT disposal procedures they could be opening themselves and their client base to a world of problems.

By: Claire Jefferies

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Claire Jefferies is writing on behalf of Millrace IT, who collect and process redundant IT and telecoms equipment that still has economic value. They also offer IT disposal and recycling old computers