June 29, 2009

Shredding/recycling program to enhance electronic data security

Beginning July 1, Physical Facilities will offer a new service to University departments for the safe and secure disposal of electronic storage media. “Recycling for the Future” is a collaborative effort between Materials Management and Distribution, University Warehouse and Surplus, and ITaP’s Secure Purdue initiative.

The "Recycling for the Future" program offers a systematic, auditable, and reliable process for the disposal of electronic storage media containing University data. These media are shredded with a high-powered shredder at the University Warehouse and the shredding byproducts are disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner by contractors that handle e-waste. Items that can be destroyed using the new shredder include hard drives, disk arrays, USB keys, CDs, and DVDs, among others.

Protecting data when it is stored in electronic form is just as important as protecting it in its paper form. The University has offered the Refuse/Recycling Confidential Document Destruction Service for a number of years. The destruction of electronic data now will be subject to the same security standards. 

"Recycling for the Future" ensures that hard drives and other electronic storage equipment that previously stored University data will no longer be offered for sale to the general public at the end of their useful lives. All such equipment will be destroyed and disposed of through the program.

In addition, the University-owned shredder will help save money. Previously, Purdue, through the Radiological and Environmental Management department, paid for outside contractors to shred critical electronic storage media. Now, such media will be shredded routinely and only the byproducts will be subject to disposal.

This new service helps secure University data, says Mike Wilkins, director of Materials Management and Distribution.

"Data used by the University often contains detailed information about Purdue University, or students, faculty, and staff," Wilkins says. "Destroying such information properly when it is no longer needed is an important part of data security."

To dispose of electronic media, departments should fill out an ECS form (www.purdue.edu/account/xls/EquipmentChangeStatus.xls) for all computers and send them to the University Warehouse before transferring/selling them to other departments. By doing so, departments will be in compliance with the secure data initiative that the University supports. The warehouse will shred the existing hard drives, and install a new 80-gigabyte hard drive along with the operating systems.

For personal computers that can be resold to the general public at the University Warehouse, the original hard drives will be removed and replaced with new 80GB hard drives. Departments offering these computers for public sale will receive a share of the proceeds.

Scott Ksander, chief information security officer for Purdue, says he is excited about the new service.

"A great number of people in a number of departments worked very hard to see this service into existence," he says. "Offering this service is a great complement to many of the information security efforts under way at Purdue."

To participate in the "Recycling for the Future" program, or for more information, contact Mark Schock, supervisor of the University Warehouse and Surplus operations, at 742-4414.

The warehouse is at 3601 Sagamore Pkwy N., Suite K, in Lafayette.