Data Tapes Destruction Problems
With ever-growing concerns about identity theft and the unintended exposure of private data, media destruction and computer recycling firms could find more business than they originally expected. Consider the story below…
The fine art of data destruction
Yes, tape cartridges blend
Michele Hope
April 12, 2007 (Network World) — Peggy Jones, a business manager for the information-management team at the College of Southern Maryland, was asked recently to help dispose of what she now estimates were about 1,200 old backup tapes and cassettes her IT organization had been storing in a relatively well-fortified walk-in vault.
The issue of what to do with the old tapes came to a head when renovation was scheduled for the building where the vault resided. “We had already moved to another backup system. So, these old tapes didn’t work in our current system anyway. Now it was just old data we needed to figure out how to dispose of properly,” Jones says.
Her research led her to Data Killers, a media-destruction and computer-recycling firm in Maryland that could shred tapes and hard drives securely, and provide a certificate affirming their destruction. It would even let you stay and watch the shredding process, if you wanted. Then the media’s “remains” would be delivered to a smelter for melting and recycling its various metals.
