GDPR Waste Management

One very important feature of the new GDPR legislation that came into effect on 25 May 2018 is the correct disposal of confidential waste.

Under the new law, every company who has clients within the EU is now responsible for the appropriate disposal of GDPR waste, including items such as hard drives, old computers, memory sticks, old client data files, paperwork, and marketing materials.

How can you get GDPR disposal right?

The first thing to know is that the destruction of any form of data is classed as a form of data processing under GDPR. The best way to ensure that you stay within the law is to employ a secure data destruction provider such as Business Waste to carry out data disposal for you.

We will securely collect any unwanted media from your business and destroy it by means of approved GDPR shredding or GDPR recycling procedures. As per GDPR requirements, we certify that the data has been destroyed, providing you with a clear audit trail from the beginning of the process to the end.

Which items of equipment should you consider for GDPR waste management processing?

Where electronic data is concerned, you need to know that hard drives can be held within any form of electronic device from CCTV systems, to photocopiers and printers. Under GDPR you are required to identify all these data sources and you must be able to account for how long you have stored data on them and the reasons for doing so.

When you are auditing your equipment, you must consider every kind of media storage device your company uses, including:

• Hard disk drives
• Media tapes
• Solid state drives
• CDs
• DVDs
• Mobile phones
• Memory sticks
• Laptops
• Tablets

During the disposal process, we remove the hard drives from the equipment so you can be sure that all the data contained within them is processed right through to destruction. There’s no risk of any of your data being stolen and your company suffering a serious data breach.

Paper documents and files

Paper documents and files should be disposed of by shredding them on-site. Once the documents have been shredded, the remnants should be disposed of securely by bagging them and placing them in one of our bins. Be sure to store the bin in an area that cannot be accessed easily so that the contents cannot be stolen.

We can ensure that your business remains safely within GDPR waste disposal requirements. For more information and to find out more about waste management, contact our friendly team today.