1) Reformatting the hard drive removes the data.

No. Reformatting the hard drive just removes the table of contents, this tells the computer that it can overwrite the rest of the disc if new files are loaded onto the machine. Tools are freely available on the Internet to reconstruct tables of contents and then access the data.

2) WEEE Recycling companies are responsible for the data.

No. WEEE recycling companies will ensure that the equipment is recycled, this may mean reselling the computer as a whole unit, or they may strip it down to its components such as the processor and hard drive and resell these components. Not all WEEE recycling facilities are secure and they deal with high volumes of equipment so can not tell where one machine is at any one time.

3) WEEE Recycling companies will do the data deletion for me.

Again, dedicated WEEE recycling facilities deal with large volumes of equipment and don’t always have the time or facilities to do data deletion unless you specifically ask and pay for this service.

4) The laptop has a password on it so the thieves can not access the data.

Given time a thief can crack the password on Windows and Mac operating systems. What we can provide is a product installed on the machine which starts overwriting the hard disc after a certain number of attempts at the password. The new user is then unaware that the drive is been wiped and although he has your laptop he doesn’t have the more valuable data.

5) Its not worth spending money on equipment that is redundant.

You have spent money on the equipment during its lifetime on upgrades, spam filters, anti virus software to stop people damaging your business. The same applies when the equipment is redundant, it may not be any use to you but the information still on it might be of use to someone else to damage your business.

6) My companies data isn’t valuable to people outside of the business.

You may think that few people are interested in your clients, but what about your employee’s information? HR and finance computers hold data such as bank accounts and address details of your employees. The employees themselves may use the computer to do Internet banking or on-line shopping, these leave cookies on the machines for thieves to use fraudulently to gain access to their bank accounts.

7) I can bash the hard drive with a hammer to destroy the data.

Hard drives are tough things, we know, the steel casing are constantly causing problems for our shredders, both the mobile shredder van, and even our huge WEEE shredder at Cinderford. Hitting the unit with a hammer may not even manage to partially damage the hard disc inside the casing, even before you consider the health and safety implications. Data can be retrieved from even small sections of hard drives which is why our shredders turn the entire drive into fragments of less than 1 inch, and why before we shred the hard drives we degauss then to disrupt the data first.

8) There is no data on the computers, its all stored on the servers.

CKS can provide expertise to data wipe servers for decommissioning by the same methods we use for desktop computers, providing the same liability insurance against data leakage.