With Companies House stating there are up to 100 cases of corporate identity theft every month, independent secure shredding company, Russell Richardson & Sons Ltd has strengthened its commercial waste disposal offering with a hard drive shredding service. This makes it easier for companies to securely dispose of computer hardware at the same time as other sensitive waste streams.
UK businesses do not seem to be taking heed even though cases of corporate espionage are increasing and it is still commonplace for old computer hard drives to simply be discarded or auctioned for re-use - many with company data still intact. By being careless with old computer equipment companies are not only potentially in breach of the Data Protection Act but it also makes them extremely vulnerable to criminal activity, where the repercussions can stretch further than a monetary fine.
Jonathan Richardson, managing director, Russell Richardson, comments: "Despite the numbers of companies falling victim to corporate identity theft rising each year and instances of financial details left on hard drives being utilised for criminal activity, best practice for computer equipment disposal continues to be ignored. We've been handling the disposal of confidential information for over 33 years and wanted to make it very straightforward and cost effective for businesses to dispose of computer hard drives in a highly secure manner.
"Our high throughput mobile trucks can shred up to 400 hard drives per hour, so we aim to cause minimum disruption at customer's premises and in compliance with our environmental targets all metals are sent for recycling in the UK."
As a highly accredited secure shredding company, Russell Richardson can provide onsite and offsite destruction of hard drives alongside its secure document, data, media, uniform and product shredding. Designed to have minimal impact on customers, hard drives can be collected and destroyed by Russell Richardson at the same time as paper or other waste streams.
Helen Hall, technical service co-ordinator, UFI, comments: "Russell Richardson has provided us with a secure shredding service for a number of years now and more recently we have utilised the hard drive destruction service. It is incredibly convenient for us as we have complete peace of mind that not only are they an accredited and secure supplier, but the destruction takes place at our premises."
A founding member of the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) Europe and The Security Alliance, Russell Richardson takes security seriously and adheres to strict standards set out in BS EN15713:2009, the European standard for the destruction of confidential information and operates to ISO9001:2008.