Another year that NextUse is in the unbelievable position of being 1 of only 6 ITAD vendors in the world, and 1 of only 3 in the US, with comprehensive digital data destruction certifications for their facility and at client sites!
If you’re not in the IT Asset Disposition industry, or responsible for frequently retiring IT assets at your organization, you might not be familiar with NAID, the National Association for Information Destruction, a division of i-SIGMA, the International Secure Information Governance & Management Association.
NAID AAA certification is the highest standard for data security and destruction of data on retired assets through various means (overwriting, physical destruction, and degaussing), and is earned per media type (HDD, SSD, non-paper media such as tapes, CDs, etc.) and per venue (at one of an ITAD vendor’s facilities or at their clients’ sites).
It continues to disappoint me over the years that much larger vendors bolt on an ITAD division for the revenue stream, and charge far more for their services, while not bothering to become certified or have relevant 3rd-party oversight on their processes or facilities.
Everyday organizations of all sizes accidentally or knowingly turn over retired IT assets full of employee and client Personally Identifiable Information, proprietary info, trade secrets, and other data to recyclers, resellers, and even moving companies with inappropriate certifications or no certifications at all, sometimes with disastrous results, such as the case with Morgan Stanley which has already cost them $120 M.
I couldn’t be prouder to be providing ITAD Program Management for NextUse’s clients, keeping their data off the Dark Web, and partnering with R2 and e-Steward certified recyclers to keep the hazardous materials in organizations’ old IT equipment out of landfills.
This is the 6th year in a row that NextUse has met these standards to provide these services. With a growing consensus from cybersecurity and privacy professionals that data security is paramount at all stages of the IT ecosystem, companies like NextUse should continue to grow as more organizations make an informed decision to switch from less qualified vendors that they’d been using for minimal savings while risking ruin.