Our data wiping policy
We run a secure data wipe on all of the computers we receive, but if you would like this to be fully reported or if you'd prefer a higher grade of secure data erase, we will charge a small administration fee. We do also recommend that donors clear data from their PCs using secure data wiping software prior to bringing them to our appeal sites. Formatting your hard drive(s) may not be sufficient if the PC had sensitive data stored on its hard drive, such as credit card or bank account details or personal information, as data on formatted hard drives can often be restored with some very basic tools. We suggest that you use a program which does a thorough cleaning of the content of your computer hard drive, making it impossible to recover the data. This may seem redundant, but it will almost always be a less expensive way to obtain complete peace of mind than asking us to report our data wipe of your computer for you.
Do it yourself? - There is a Freeware tool for data wiping
A free program called DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) is very suitable for data wiping your computer. Please note that all data on your computer's hard drive(s) will be lost once you run the program on it. Please ensure that you backup all of your data before you DBAN your computer. You should also always test your backup.
We do not offer support for the use of this program but the documentation on the DBAN web site is very good and does include a FAQ section. Although DBAN is freeware, it is also open source meaning that anyone who wants to can view its source code. This, along with its popularity, ensures that it is both bug-free and free of any ill-intentioned spyware as the open source community filters and enhances it. You can find more information on using DBAN here.
Commercial Datawipe
We offer a full reporting service on our computer data wipe, including standard of wipe, serial numbers and asset numbers of the computers wiped. We offer this at three standards: A basic 3-pass erase with random data costs £5 to report and a 7-pass erase costs £10. In both cases, there is a 10% discount for reporting 10 PCs or more, or a 20% discount for reporting 20 PCs or more.
