Why You Should Consider Media Degaussing Services

Media Degaussing Services Benefits Your Business

Do you have sensitive information on your hard drive, or another digital format that needs to be destroyed with competence and confidence? Simple physical destruction of the object might not be enough to protect your information. You want to consider degaussing.

It is derived from a practice in WWII in which British ships would avoid German mines by being “wiped” with coils that would cancel a magnetic distortion that would trigger the mines.

This technology was later repurposed into what we call ‘degaussing’.

Degaussing is the process of removing or neutralizing the magnetic field of something to completely wipe it of it’s contents. Ultimately, it is used to render some items useful, while reverting others to a starting environment.

One major industry that can definitely benefit from using media degaussing is the healthcare industry, to comply with HIPAA laws (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

Article 164.310 of the Act, which deals with physical safeguards, states;

(d)(1) Implement policies and procedures that govern the receipt and removal of hardware and electronic media that contain electronic protected health information into and out of a facility, and the movement of these items within the facility.

(2)(i) Implement policies and procedures to address the final disposition of electronic protected health information, and/or the hardware or electronic media on which it is stored.

(ii) Media re-use: Implement procedures for removal of Electronic protected health information from electronic media before the media are made available for re-use.

Outside of HIPAA, there are other laws such as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that have made disposing of various forms of data illegal.

Besides healthcare, many other professions including bankers, lawyers and accountants can find degaussing beneficial.

Items you should consider degaussing:

• Computer Hard Drives (laptop, large, standard)

• CD/DVD

• Zip Disks

• Any Form of Magnetic Tape (video, audio, computer)

• Back-up Tapes

On some forms of tape, so much data is stored that simply destroying them is not adequate.

Degaussing assures the data is completely removed.

We offer a media degaussing and destruction service that eliminates your sensitive information, as well as adds an extra dimension for hard drives that adds the visual identification necessary to positively identify they have been properly sanitized.

Contact us for all of your degaussing and shredding needs.