Secure Data Destruction in Nottingham

The standards we work to

Every data-bearing device is processed to HMG Infosec Standard No. 5 (the UK Government data erasure standard) or NIST 800-88 (Clear or Purge, matched to your policy), or physically shredded in accordance with BS EN 15713 where destruction is required.

HMG Infosec Standard No. 5 — the UK Government's own data erasure standard. Where your policy calls for a recognised government benchmark, this is usually the one it means.

NIST 800-88 — an international standard covering two levels. Clear overwrites data so it can't be recovered by normal means. Purge goes further, defeating laboratory recovery techniques. We match the level to your policy rather than picking one for you.

BS EN 15713 — the British and European standard for secure destruction of confidential material. Where a drive must be physically destroyed rather than erased, this is the standard the shredding is carried out to.

Wipe or shred? An honest answer

There's no single right answer, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

Certified erasure keeps the hardware working. The device stays in use — resold, redeployed or donated — which costs less and wastes less. For most business data, properly certified erasure is entirely sufficient.

Physical destruction is the right call when the data is highly sensitive, when a drive has failed and can't be reliably wiped, or when your own policy requires it. The trade-off is that the hardware is gone.

Failed drives are worth flagging: a drive that won't respond can't be verifiably erased, so it gets destroyed rather than assumed clean.

We'll ask what your policy says and work to it. If you don't have one written down, we'll tell you what most organisations in your position do.

Where destruction takes place

All destruction is carried out at the licensed facility — not at your premises. Your equipment is counted before it leaves your building and checked in item for item on arrival, so the chain is documented at both ends.

Transport is in our own GPS-tracked, insured vehicles, driven by staff security-screened to BS 7858, direct to the facility with no third-party transfer in between.

The paperwork you actually get

Compliance isn't a certificate — it's a chain. Your equipment is counted before it leaves your building, and the Waste Transfer Note and Duty of Care documentation are completed and signed digitally on site, with copies emailed to you the same day. Where the load requires a Hazardous Waste Consignment Note, that's raised on site too.

Within five working days you receive one compliance pack under a single collection reference: Data Destruction Certificate, WEEE Certificate, ESG Report and Asset Audit — every document cross-referenced against the paperwork you signed at collection.

Data-bearing devices are individually serialised at processing, and those serial numbers appear on your Asset Audit. That's the document that lets you match a specific machine to a specific destruction record, which is what an auditor will ask for.

What we destroy data on

Hard drives (HDD and SSD) · laptops and desktops · servers and RAID arrays · mobile phones and tablets · backup tapes · USB drives and memory cards · photocopiers and MFDs with internal storage · networking equipment with stored configuration.

Photocopiers are the one most people forget. Most modern office copiers contain a hard drive holding images of everything scanned or printed through them.

Replacing the hardware too?

A refurbished business laptop costs a fraction of new and arrives configured and ready to work, backed by a 12-month warranty as standard — with extended cover available up to three years if you'd rather not think about it again. And because we're clearing your old equipment anyway, the whole changeover happens with one supplier.