Data destruction, why is it so important?

What does the law state?

The General Data Protection Regulation (AVG) is the new European privacy law that states that your organization must protect its data. It requires organizations to take measures to protect the personal data of its customers and employees. This includes data that is on hardware and not being used, as well as paper information such as confidential documents. In fact, the law states, data that is no longer "needed" must be destroyed.

Why destroy data?

The main reason to destroy data is to use it to prevent data breaches.

A data breach means that unauthorized persons, which can include hackers, gain access to customer data or secret company data. This may also involve a paper file that is no longer needed, for example, so the information does not necessarily have to be digital. A person with malicious intent can find data in both paper information and unused data carriers and use it for malicious purposes.

A data breach can lead to business continuity breaches, reputation damage and financial losses. By destroying your data in a timely manner, you reduce the risk of data breaches and do your utmost to protect the privacy of your staff, customers and suppliers.

What do you need to destroy as an organization?

As an organization, you must destroy all unused information-bearing hardware and paper files. Examples include: hard drives, USB sticks, old servers or confidential information. The data must be permanently deleted, also known as making it unreadable. To destroy paper information, you can use a paper shredder that makes all data unreadable. For hardware, you have the choice of software-based data destruction and/or hardware-based data destruction. This way, as an organization, you can be sure that your data has been destroyed!

Software-based data destruction is the overwriting of data through software. This completely overwrites the data on the data carrier and the data can no longer be retrieved. The advantage of this is that the data carriers can provide a residual value for your organization. For example, you may even make money from it. In addition, the organization receives a certificate for software-based data destruction.

Hardware-based data destruction is the shredding of data carriers by means of a shredder. In shredding, the data carrier is ground until there is nothing left but shreds. This destroys the data completely. These shreds can then be recycled.

How can your organization destroy data?

You can destroy your data in different ways. As an organization, you can destroy paper documents with a paper shredder. However, this paper shredder must meet a number of requirements. We are happy to go through these requirements with you. We also offer solutions for shredding hardware.

Do you want to know how to safeguard your reputation and integrity? If so, we at Fendix are happy to think with you about how to destroy your organization's data and prevent a data breach, because prevention is better than cure!