All critical information assets must be disposed of securely. Secure disposal means deleting information from media in a way that ensures the data is not recoverable. Never discard or leave any critical information in an area accessible to the public.
Wiping Electronic Storage
Most methods of deleting a file from a computer’s hard drive only remove pointers to the actual file — they do not remove the information itself. Most system utilities, and even ways to re-format the hard drive, do not remove the information either.
If you are still actively using the hard drive and are deleting small amounts of critical information (such as a column of SSNs in an old spreadsheet), it is fine to use normal deletion methods and then delete your deleted items.
However, if you are disposing of a hard drive or any storage media, IU policy FIN-PURCH-11: Disposal and Redistribution of University Property requires wiping or destroying them prior to disposal or transfer outside the university. Many utilities will securely wipe a disk or other storage media prior to disposal.
Hard Drive Destruction
Destroying the hard drive/storage media is often most effective, and IU provides the IU Surplus Data Destruction Service for IU Bloomington and IU Indianapolis.
Shredding paper
Information classified as Critical data , when stored in paper form, must be properly destroyed by shredding. For low-volume paper document destruction, units may consider purchasing a small cross-cut paper shredder. For high volume needs, a document destruction vendor may be the best solution. IU Purchasing currently lists the following contracted vendors for document destruction.