Data Security

Your data, personal information, and privacy are important to us.

When you donate laptops and computers, we take the security of your data very seriously. We perform thorough procedures to ensure all data is wiped from every hard drive we receive for reuse. As an ERRP-certified organization and an official Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher, we are held to high standards in every step of the refurbishment process. 

We ask that you wipe your hard drives before donation in compliance with PIPEDA legislation. However, whether your hard drives arrived wiped or not, their secure erasure and overwrite is our first step in the refurbishment process.

The Destroyinator - a secure hard drive wiping process

Summary of Data Wiping Procedures

  • Hard drives are pulled from their computer and wiped using a 3-layer overwrite using industry-standard methods. Upon completion:

    If the hard drive does not PASS the wipe process due to age or condition it is rendered physically inoperable with a Pure Leverage hard drive crusher and sent to FCM Recycling for shredding and downstream recycling.

    If the hard drive does pass the wipe process and has 60% health, it is used in a refurbished computer.

  • All sources of donor identification such as asset tags are removed to keep the origins of equipment confidential to end users. Our own internal barcode is applied to track equipment in our system.

  • All hard drives are securely stored in a quarantine area.

Hard Drive Wipe Tools

We use LSoft Technologies Inc.’s Active KillDisk to perform the DOD Standard 5220.22M method to wipe all hard drives. This meets CSEC’s ITSG-06 security directives for sanitization of hard drives containing Unclassified and Protected-C content. Utilizing Active KillDisk’s 3-pass wipe process overwrites all sectors of the hard drive 3 times and verifies its completion. A 7-pass is available to donors seeking additional assurance. We verify that all data has been successfully wiped and is unrecoverable before using the drive for reuse.

The Destroyinator is a server-based system which deploys Active KillDisk across 45 slots. Each rotation takes between 8-12 hours, depending on the size and speed of the hard drive.

Data wipe verification certificates are available upon request for $10 per hard drive.