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How to Securely Channel Your Charitable Spirit with Data Erasure

While many enterprises still use data destruction methods such as shredding and grinding, there’s a better way. With Blancco data erasure, enterprises can remove all data from no-longer-needed technology devices, saving them for secure reuse, often by recipients who desperately need them.

Stephanie Larochelle Stephanie Larochelle is Content Marketing Manager at Blancco, where she covers secure data erasure and IT asset lifecycle management for corporate IT teams, ITAD providers and mobile device processors. She brings more than a decade of technical writing experience and a background in military service, information security and cybersecurity that informs her approach to data protection and regulatory compliance.

We must move away from data destruction and rethink data disposal methods

The Circular Drive Initiative estimates that 90% of hard drives are destroyed at the end of their life, despite many being reusable.

Additionally, an estimated 151 million mobile phones are disposed of annually in the US alone, contributing to the growing e-waste crisis.

The physical destruction of drives, computers, and phones not only increases e-waste but also misses opportunities for secure reuse.

Instead of destroying millions of data storage devices once they reach end of life, enterprises can safely donate technology to schools or organizations in need—without worrying about their data ever getting into the wrong hands or prematurely contributing to landfills.

Physical Destruction Misconceptions Drive Growing E-Waste

In our research study, The Rising Tide of E-Waste, we found that 35 percent of enterprises used physical destruction to sanitize end-of-life technology devices because IT leaders believed it was less risky and better for the environment. Of these, 46 percent thought the resulting components could be recycled or reused.

Meanwhile, electronic waste is increasing five times faster than documented recycling rates, growing by 2.6 million tons annually and projected to reach 82 million tons by 2030.

Reuse is the way forward.

Ensure secure data sanitization, tax incentives, and community good with data erasure

Because data erasure verifiably removes data from across enterprise drives and devices, those assets can benefit others without fear of sensitive data being extracted

This end-of-life data security allows compliance with numerous data protection regulations. This, in turn, gives enterprises new-found freedom to donate goods for a good cause and often, benefit financially from tax incentives through their donations. 

Your enterprise’s used technology has the power to transform communities around the world.

How enterprises can give back

Blancco’s data erasure solutions ensure secure, compliant data sanitization on the widest range of data storage technologies.  

By using the world’s most certified and trusted data sanitization software, enterprises can safely help underserved communities when they donate desktops, laptops, mobile devices, removable storage media, and loose drives or servers to charities that can put them to good use.

You may already have a nonprofit, school, or NGO in mind. If not, Blancco works with many worthwhile charities or causes that can use laptops, PCs, and other devices your organization may no longer need. Either way, our representatives can help you efficiently prepare your devices for a data-secure, compliant contribution.

Charitable giving: finding the right fit

When looking for the right organization to partner with for repurposing your enterprise’s used IT assets, it’s crucial to ensure they align with your company’s needs, goals, and values. Here are key factors to consider:

Taking the time to assess potential partners through these lenses ensures you’ll find an organization that manages your retired assets responsibly. This amplifies your company’s impact in meaningful ways, and helps you advance your corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals.

How Blancco supports charities

We are proud to support worthwhile organizations as we work toward allowing for end-of-life technology devices to be securely erased and reused within underserved communities.

Blancco software licenses and skills training have allowed organizations to provide thousands of fully functional, data-free, enterprise-donated computers to disadvantaged populations on four continents. Here’s how:

• Turing Trust—Turing Trust refurbishes used computers to facilitate “technology-enabled education” and teacher training in sub-Saharan Africa. Donated devices are reclaimed with a focus on data security and a desire to reduce electronic waste. More than 16,000 devices have been successfully erased using Blancco software, increasing student education and career opportunities.   
• Ethan Indigenous—In Australia, Blancco’s data erasure licenses ensure that refurbished devices are safely and securely donated to schools and communities to upskill youth for professional career pathways in IT. Blancco and Ethan Indigenous also upskill Indigenous cadets to help with the refurbishment process, training them on how to perform certified data erasure on donated devices.  
• Dairu Foundation—An estimated four million children in Vietnam lack the computing devices needed to adapt to online schooling. To meet this need, increase digital literacy, and facilitate online education, Blancco joined forces with The Dairu Foundation to provide 70 rural schools and 2,000 disadvantaged children with free-of-charge rentals of donated laptops and desktops.
• Computers for Community—Computers for Community, a nonprofit of XenTegra, supplies non-profits with Blancco-sanitized laptops from top enterprise businesses. These non-profits serve school children in developing countries; U.S. veterans globally; those exiting homelessness, addiction, and abuse; and elderly groups focused on digital literacy.
• LiteHaus International—LiteHaus helps students of the Asia Pacific region get a digital education. Thanks to enterprise computer donations, it refurbishes old computers, sanitizes the data from them, and distributes them to schools and students. LiteHaus’s work has benefitted more than 100,000 people to date.
• Salvation Army Trading Company, Ltd.—SATCoL’s IT Reuse scheme provides a UK hub for businesses to donate excess, returned, or faulty computers and mobile devices that can be reused, repurposed, or recycled. Working together with brand partners, local authorities and schools, SATCoL gives old computers new life, reselling them to raise funds for charity and provide affordable technology to the community.

Donating your enterprise computers

Your enterprise’s used technology has the power to transform communities around the world. Contact any of these organizations to donate devices in a secure, sustainable way.

And, if you’re wanting to donate your used enterprise computers to a different charitable group, make sure that organization uses a secure data erasure solution, such as Blancco’s, that maintains the functionality of the device while removing all data. This step should be verified and then confirmed with a tamper-proof certificate of erasure.

You may be interested in:

Financial Organizations Can Improve ESG Performance with Data Erasure

Cutting the Carbon Footprint of Enterprise Data Storage 

LiteHaus Repurposes 1000s of Enterprise Devices for Students & Computer Labs

Blancco Saves 107M KG of IT Devices from Becoming E-waste