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Your business wants to get rid of its old computers to make way for upgrades. You’re planning on bringing those computers to a hazardous waste drop-off depot so that their parts can be safely recycled instead of put in a landfill.

Recycling e-waste is an excellent eco-conscious practice to follow. Electronics contain heavy metals that could potentially contaminate a landfill’s environment, like the soil and the groundwater. When you send e-waste to a recycling center, you’re keeping it in a controlled environment. The waste doesn’t sit in a pile for years. It’s quickly sorted and dismantled to find materials that can be safely reused.

E-waste isn’t just hazardous to the environment. If you’re not careful, it can be hazardous to your business, too. Find out why e-waste is so risky for businesses and what’s the safest way to dispose of it.

The Risk of E-Waste

Certain types of commercial electronic waste, like hard drives and USB sticks, are vulnerable to data breaches. The fact that the electronics are old or broken does not completely protect your business from this vulnerability. The fact that files were deleted from the devices also doesn’t guarantee protection. There are data recovery tools and strategies that hackers can use to retrieve deleted files on devices, even ones that appear to be wiped clean.

If hackers get their hands on your business’s electronic waste, these are some of the consequences that your business could face:

Data Breaches

Improperly discarded devices can lead to major data breaches. These data breaches could negatively impact business operations, and in some cases, they could impact swaths of innocent customers/clients/patients.

Hackers can access all sorts of sensitive information left on devices. They can access confidential business plans, like upcoming product announcements, that they could leak out to the press. They can find passwords and login credentials for business accounts. And, if your business handles sensitive client accounts, they can access hundreds of clients’ personal data, making them vulnerable to crimes like identity theft. Learn the warning signs of identity theft to watch out for.

As a quick example, the investment banking company Morgan Stanley faced a $35 million dollar fine by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2022. The business faced this fine because it didn’t dispose of computer devices properly. It auctioned off these devices, which still contained unencrypted data of approximately 1.1 million New Yorkers.

Legal Consequences

Improper disposal of e-waste can violate certain laws designed to protect someone’s personal information.

One such law is Canada’s federal privacy law PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act). PIPEDA states that a commercial business must protect its employees personal information, as well as the data of individuals (this could be for the business’s patients, clients or customers). Failing to adhere to PIPEDA could lead to investigations by the Office of the Privacy Commission and legal repercussions, like fines of up to $100,000 CAD per violation.

Read our guide on understanding PIPEDA for your business so that you can comply with the law. By complying, you can avoid investigations and expensive legal consequences.

Loss of Reputation

Consumers lose confidence in businesses that have recently experienced breaches in security. A survey from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) found that 28% of businesses who faced cyberattacks in the past year believed the incidents damaged their reputation, while 26% of them lost customers. Customers will respond the same way to a data breach.

In a moment, the shining reputation that your company has worked so hard to build could go up in a puff of smoke. And it’s unclear whether your reputation will fully recover.

How Should Your Business Eliminate E-Waste?

Now you know that you can’t rush to a drop-off depot and get rid of all of your workplace e-waste. Even if you’ve tried to delete data from the electronics, there is still a possibility that hackers could retrieve that confidential information and use it for nefarious purposes.

Businesses need to destroy old electronics that could potentially have data on them to prevent any breaches from happening, no matter how far-fetched they seem. By completely destroying the devices, you can guarantee that they won’t be accessible once you’ve disposed of them.

Secure Data Disposal for Businesses

Our commercial data destruction solutions can help your business effectively destroy electronics like computers, laptops, tablets and USBs. This safety precaution isn’t wasteful. The e-waste will be recycled after it’s been properly destroyed. Your business can still remain committed to its eco-conscious goals.

We don’t just tackle e-waste. We can meet other data disposal needs for businesses, like shredding large amounts of confidential print documents. If your business is hoping to declutter old filing cabinets full of papers, our experts can help get rid of them completely.

All of these professional destruction services can be done on-site to ensure security.

The Benefits of On-Site Data Destruction Services

Businesses shouldn’t use destruction services that take electronics off-site before destroying them. On-site data destruction is a much better option. Why is that?

Eliminating Transportation Risks

When you transport electronics with sensitive information before they have been destroyed, you’re creating an unnecessary security risk. The electronics could be lost, stolen or compromised in transit. Eliminate this vulnerability and get on-site data destruction for maximum security.

Customer Reassurance

When the stakes for data breaches feel high, you won’t want to take your eyes off the electronics – at least, not until you have proof that they are destroyed and disposed of. Having the data destruction on site will confirm that all electronics and documents are collected, destroyed and secured properly. This should give you peace of mind.

If your business arranged for its data to be destroyed off-site, you would have to assume that the process was completed appropriately. You couldn’t be 100% sure.

Data Security Compliance

Business owners can be sure that they are meeting legal obligations for data destruction when it’s done entirely on-site. Our service technicians provide certificates of destruction for destroyed electronics and documents upon completion. These certificates will act as proof of your business’s compliance with the current privacy laws, like PIPEDA .

Getting rid of your business’s electronics is a little more complicated than going to a drop-off depot! To prevent data breaches that could hurt your business and anyone connected to it, you should get your old electronics professionally destroyed and recycled on site. Absolute Destruction is here to help you get the job done.