UK Government Security Standards: ‘Higher-Level’

Improper Disposal is the 3rd Most Common Cause of Accidental Data Loss (1)

According to UK Government National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC):

1. Hard Drives and Tapes Classified as 'Restricted' or Above Should be Degaussed

• Our degausser is approved to the NCSC ‘higher-level’ security standard
• This means it is suitable to destroy even ‘top-secret’ data
• Following degaussing we can shred hard drives and tapes to 16mm (or 6mm if required)
• 6mm is recommended for ‘top secret', 'secret' or 'confidential'

2. Hard Drives Bearing ‘Unclassified’ or ‘Protected’ Data Should be ‘Prevented From Spinning’:

• Our powerful crusher punches out the disk motor and creates ripples in the disk platters, preventing them from spinning and making any kind of data retrieval impossible

3. Optical Disks and Solid State Drives Should be Shredded 

• We shred CDs, DVDs, USB, Media / SIM Cards etc to 2mm regardless of security classification
• This exceeds NCSC requirements

Organisations Can be Prosecuted for Failing to Comply With the Terms of the Data Protection Act:

Whether you run a large business, an SME, a charity, a school, an NHS Trust or any other type of Public Sector or Private Sector organisation, the Data Protection Act (1998) obliges you to ensure “Appropriate technical & organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data & against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data”. Even if your stored data is not of a personal nature, it is likely to be commercially sensitive & in addition to the threat of prosecution, there are other potentially damaging ramifications of sensitive data falling into the wrong hands, such as damage to reputation, weakened ability to compete & crippling financial losses. Veritas is registered as a  ‘Data Controller’ under the terms of the Data Protection Act (1998), our secure destruction and recycling service is ISO9001 and ISO14001 accredited, and backed by £1M professional indemnity insurance.

For further details of our security standards please see: ‘Maintaining the Security of Your Data’

(1) KPMG International Report Oct 2010