Attachment 10 Westat Media Sanitization & Disposal Policy

Westat’s Media Sanitization and Disposal policy
Purpose
This document describes the procedures used to ensure that digital media such as hard
disk drives, floppy disks, CDs and tapes are disposed of in a safe and secure manner.
Tape Media Disposal
All tape media scheduled for destruction is brought to the RE Data Center, logged and
recorded into our media destruction tracking system. The media is degaussed by trained
operators on a Proton 8000 magnetic media degausser. This equipment generates a strong
magnetic field that surrounds the media and erases all data from the tape. The processed
media is stored in a secure room until pick-up by an offsite media destruction vendor.
The media destruction vendor is contracted by Westat to collect stored media on a
monthly basis. A transmittal letter containing an itemized listing of the tape identifiers
and the tape media is delivered to the vendor’s onsite representative who accepts delivery
of the materials and transports the tapes to their company location where they are
shredded. After the materials are destroyed the vendor sends Westat a confirmation letter
certifying final destruction.
Hard Disk Media Disposal
Westat uses the GDisk software utility to destroy the contents of hard disk drives. GDisk
reinitializes the master boot record which makes it impossible to read any information on
the hard disk drive. The utility is then used to remove the existing partition and format
the hard disk drive three times in accordance with DOD standards for hard disk media
content destruction.
All Other Digital Media
Digital media are handled separately from paper documents and should not be put in the
shredding drop-off containers. Media to be destroyed should be delivered to PC
Technical Services (RA 1000F) where it is stored in a padlocked plastic container. The
contents are destroyed following the same procedures for tape media described above,
except that no transmittal letter is prepared due to the volume of media processed.
The following types of recordable media can be sent to PC Technical Services for
destruction:
• 5.25" diskettes
• 3.5" diskettes
• CDs
• DVDs
• Zip and Jazz disks
• VHS and audio cassettes