Editor's Focus

Plugging Into Opportunity

It’s clear from the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) 2007 Annual Conference, which was mid-April in Orlando, Fla., electronic media destruction is a topic on the minds of many information destruction professionals.

In addition to sessions on insurance and serving sparsely populated areas, the 2007 conference program included numerous educational sessions on handling electronic media. With standing-room only attendance at many of these sessions, destruction professionals are obviously looking for a clearer view of the cloudy horizon that is electronic media and information destruction.

While many information destruction professionals began their careers by shredding paper documents, as more and more information exists only in digital form, electronic media presents opportunities and challenges for established destruction professionals, particularly those with mobile operations. While document destruction professionals recognize the potential opportunities that exist in destroying the information contained on electronic media, many say they are unsure about how to capitalize on that potential. With the various methods of information destruction available, including data sanitation and physical destruction, many professionals debate the secure destruction industry’s preferred approach. Many advocate for complete physical destruction, while some say this is not necessary in all cases.

How to go about destroying this information is only one concern. Information destruction professionals also must properly handle and dispose of some hardware, such as hard drives, which can contain hazardous materials.

With many document destruction professionals interested in capturing digital media and hard drives for destruction, but uncertain about how to begin offering these services, the conference programming provided a welcome opportunity to learn more about the subject from professionals who are already familiar with electronic information and media destruction.

While SDB has always included digital media and information destruction and electronics recycling as part of our coverage, we realize that we may need to begin at the beginning to best address our readers’ concerns and questions on the topic. To do so, I’d like your input. Please contact me at dtoto@gie.net with your questions about embarking on digital information destruction services. I will do my best to prepare a feature that addresses your common questions.

As more information fails to migrate from the digital to the paper realm, this issue will grow in importance for information destruction professionals.