In the age of laptops, tablets and other various kinds of gadgets, every important and unimportant information is stored on the hardrives of the gadgets that we use. Even after you’ve deleted files from your laptop, there are always ways that they can be retrieved, if it falls in the wrong hands. Big and small organisations always have large and small sensitive information on their laptops and other gadgets. There are many laptops and computers that get circulated among different employees who come and go. This poses a constant risk of any important information getting leaked or used for wrong purposes. The risk of this happening increases the need for a policy on destruction of data.
- No Policy Means Increased Threat
If there is no policy in place regarding IT equipment and data destruction, then your company’s sensitive information and secrets are at a bigger threat of getting leaked and misused. You may think that deleting files from the recycle bin means they are gone from the system forever, but there are still ways to recover things from the harddrive of a laptop or computer. Having a data destruction policy in place will ensure that your company’s data is not available to anyone who shouldn’t have it. For example, employees who have quit the organisation or employees who were fired from the organisation should not have access to your company’s information. There’s always a risk of these being misused, so it’s important that there should be a data destruction policy in place.
- Media Shredding
Media shredding should be an important part of the data destruction policy in organisations. Companies should not just throw away media and gadgets in the trash because they still contain sensitive information which can be misused for others benefit. Media should always be destroyed by a certified data and media destruction company. This is the only way to ensure that important and sensitive information of your company doesn’t get distributed elsewhere. This is so, because media shredding companies have shredding machines and equipment that shreds the media into tiny pieces without leaving anything behind. This will ensure 100%, that all data is gone and is inaccessible forever.
Remember, if there are any back ups of this data, then it’s important to get rid of that too.
Discarding and shredding data is especially important for client driven organisations because if a client’s information is misused, they can sue you which will not only result in a heavy penalty and legal action, but also a tarnished reputation of your company.
- Classified Equipment Destruction
It’s important to have destruction of classified equipment under the data destruction policy to ensure that any hard drive, laptop or other gadgets that may have sensitive information on them, are destroyed. This includes all kinds of gadgets like flash drives, computers, tablets, mobiles etc. If you want to protect your company’s data which may include financial statements, client information, upcoming projects, deals etc. it’s important that you make this a part of your data destruction policy. It’s the only guaranteed way to get rid of all sensitive information about your company.
A very important point in data destruction is that you must follow all the rules and regulations of the law regarding data disposal. If you get your data destruction done from professionals, they will be able to guide you regarding the correct law and procedure for the same.
Conclusion
In the age of digitisation where everyone is technologically educated, dependent and hackers pose a great threat, it has become all the more important to ensure that important data doesn’t fall in the wrong hands. Destroying sensitive information seems to be the only way to do this. What doesn’t exist anymore, cannot harm you or your company.
