Why should you dispose of data from the devices before sending it for recycling?

If you do not dispose of the data appropriately, theft may occur. There are no chances left for data theft when you discard all the information. Data destruction is a process in which you destroy all the personal, business, bank and other details. Throwing or disposing of your devices without absolute destruction can cause leakage of a plethora of information that can be professional.

Your business or your data may contain some sensitive information. It may consist of the details of your investors, business partners, and some payment information. This piece of information always needs to be protected, and this process of protection is called data security. If you recycle the electronics in the right way, you can protect against data theft.

Why is data destruction becoming a big concern?

Every time technology hits some innovations and keeps everyone stunned. Let’s take the example of new smartphones. You buy a new phone, but before replacing the obsolete one, you discard all the data in it. Why do you do that? The answer is obvious, to protect your data. Just like destroying all mobile data, it is essential to discard the data on your official and personal assets. Simply deleting all crucial information is not the solution. Hackers are smart enough to recover the deleted data, and thus, it is advised to remove it from your hard drives and other locations.

Why recycling is a better option?

Rather than trashing the old smartphone, it is better to sell them or donate them. You can either think of sending them for recycling after destroying all data. If you sell the old mobile phone and the buyer throws it out openly, it will be a risk to the environment. If the electronic devices are thrown in the garbage, they pose risk to the beautiful ecosystem. There are a few components like lead, arsenic which are harmful to the environment. If these components get mixed with soil, they may contaminate it. Even before sending your device for e-waste, you must delete all the data.

You can follow some data destruction steps before recycling the devices.

1. Move your crucial data

Before sending the devices for recycling, make sure you have a safe place to keep your data. When you delete the information from your devices, you find abundant data among which only a few pieces of information is crucial. Ensure you keep that important information in a safer place.  If you are using office 365 or google drive, your data is safe. If you have anything saved in the external drives, make sure to keep them safe too.

2. Clean your hard drive:

You don’t have to worry after wiping and clearing out the hard drive. As you have moved all the important information from hard drive to a safer place. Ensure you do a factory reset before recycling. Factory reset cleans the whole hard disk.

3. Unwanted memory cards or SD cards

If you are thinking to recycle the device, remove the unwanted CDs and SD cards. These may also contain something important, so it is better to remove them. It is easy to destroy them manually. Summing it up, data destruction is crucial for managing business liabilities. It is better to crush the data to avoid any extraction.