What is a Certificate of Data Destruction?

Posted in Blog

Glenn Laga

Perhaps you’ve been asked to provide a certificate of data destruction as a result of an audit or routine chain of custody verification. Or worse, the fallout from a data breach.

Ensure that your data destruction process is airtight by understanding what the certificate of data destruction is and the verification you’ll need for an effective, compliant data destruction plan that stands up to scrutiny.

And, lets you sleep at night.

What is a Certificate of Data Destruction?

Quite simply, a Certificate of Data Destruction is a formal document stating that digital media has been destroyed.

It should include detailed information about the method of destruction, a detailed list of IT devices (hard drives, SSD drives, magnetic tape, cell phones, USB drives, arrays, etc.) destroyed to ensure that the data destruction process complied with all relevant security laws, most importantly NIST 800-88 specifications.

Are all Certificates of Data Destruction the same?

There is no certifying authority for the data destruction industry so the reputation, reporting capability and legitimacy of your data destruction vendor is paramount. In other words, choose carefully.

Data destruction partners should automatically provide verification that will protect you, your client and your client relationship in the unfortunate circumstance of either legal action, a data breach investigation or an audit of your data destruction process. Without the backup verification, the Certificate of Data Destruction doesn’t provide absolute proof of data privacy regulatory compliance and best practices.

Find the best data destruction provider

We’ve put together this handy How to select a gold-standard data destruction provider checklist of criteria that your data destruction provider should have or provide to support a strong Certificate of Data Destruction.

Your ITAD, VAR or even head of data security should work with you to develop the right criteria for selecting the right data destruction vendor to meet your standard. And advise you on a best practices plan to ensure that the data is destroyed so that you can rest easy.

Guardian is here

If you need help, talk to us. Without obligation. We’re happy to answer any questions to ensure that your assets are certified (really certified) to be data free. And, we can refer you to a VAR or ITAD if you need one.

To learn more about data destruction options, download our Data Destruction 101 guide or read our data destruction services section of the website.