Growing Demand for Data Destruction Services
Source: SingTao Newspaper 14/08/2010
The resale of customer data by Octopus and banks has raised widespread concern about the confidentiality of personal data, and has also brought business opportunities to companies that provide data destruction services. Yip Man-kei, head of Information Confidentiality Processing Limited, admitted that since last month enquiries about its services have risen from two or three a week to several a day. “Large organisations have dedicated departments for destroying records, but SMEs may not have the staff or machines to handle it. Recently even a music shop came to us to destroy its students’ records, and we have also had enquiries from transport companies, car dealers, restaurant chains and schools. We once destroyed 3,000 boxes of financial and customer records for a single company.” Yip said the company’s business also includes recycling waste paper: the documents provided by clients are usually first cut into zip-like strips with an industrial shredder so that they cannot be pieced together again, and are then baled and sent to the Mainland to be made into recycled paper.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Wong of Vector Data Recovery (HK) Company Limited, which provides data destruction services, also said that demand for its services has risen by nearly 30% over the past two years compared with before. “Our clients include hospitals, banks and listed companies. Large organisations buy degaussing equipment from us to delete files themselves, while others have their data destroyed using the technology we provide.” He said a degausser can generate a powerful magnetic field that reduces the magnetic flux on the media to zero, completely deleting the data, and that it is the simplest and most widely used method on the market.
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