April 1
The revelation in 2007 that a laptop computer which contained personal information regarding members of the Canadian Alliance party, the predecessor to the Conservative Party, was purchased on eBay is yet another important reminder that sometimes data needs to be destroyed, not simply deleted, especially when computers change hands.
As part of an ongoing investigation, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch periodically buys discarded U.S. government computers from recyclers in Nigeria. In a December 2006 article, the paper reported it had found school records, personal messages, financial information and teachers’ Social Security numbers from public schools in California and Virginia on computers it had purchased.
In April 2005, a man searching a garbage dump in the United Kingdom was handed a laptop containing 70 top secret files from the British military, including details of a British army camp and navy base, by a woman at the dump.
What will you do the next time you ‘dispose’ of a computer that you no longer want?
One thing is for certain. Don’t be foolish and simply throw away your computer without wiping your drive clean of data.
If you’re not careful with your data, you could also be throwing your identity away, too.
Category: helpful hints, helpful hints
Tags: data destruction, download, identity, sensitive data
