Certified data destruction.
Retired devices leave your building as an asset, not a liability. Every one of them accounted for by serial number.
NIST SP 800-88
Serialized
Auditable
- Certificate of Data Destruction on every serial
- Documented chain of custody, dock to disposition
- Free collection, whatever the volume
- Value returned on anything worth reusing
A deleted file is not a destroyed file
Most of what passes for data destruction inside an organization removes the pointer to the data and leaves the data itself sitting on the platter. The gap between those two things is where breach notifications come from.
Deleting and reformatting
A quick format rewrites the file table, not the blocks. Free recovery tools pull the contents back in minutes.
Factory resets
Reliable on a modern encrypted phone, unreliable on everything else. On many devices it clears the profile and nothing underneath it.
Overwriting an SSD
Wear levelling means a multi-pass overwrite never reaches the spare blocks. Flash needs a purge command or destruction, not a scrub.
Drilling and smashing
A hole through the casing leaves most of the platter readable, and leaves you with no record that anything happened at all.
The failure mode is rarely the technique. It's the missing paperwork: no serial list, no method on record, no signature. If you can't evidence destruction, you can't evidence it didn't leak.
The right method for the media, evidenced either way
NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 1 draws the line between Clear, Purge and Destroy. We pick per media type and per your risk appetite, and the method we used goes on the certificate against the serial number.
Logical sanitization (Clear / Purge)
Every data-bearing device we receive is sanitized in line with NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 1 under our R2v3-certified Appendix B process, and the result is verified before the asset moves on. Every pass is verified by re-read, and a drive that fails verification is never given a second chance — it's rerouted to physical destruction.
Cryptographic erase
On self-encrypting drives and modern encrypted endpoints, destroying the key destroys the data. Fast, verifiable, and the only sound approach on flash that was encrypted from first use.
Physical destruction (Destroy)
Media that cannot be verifiably sanitized — failed drives, damaged media, and anything you designate as destroy-only — is physically destroyed by a certified destruction partner inside our audited downstream chain, under documented custody from your dock to the shredder. The shredded material stays in the recycling stream — destroyed, then recovered, never landfilled.
Evidence, either way
Sanitized or shredded, the output is the same document set: a serialized Certificate of Data Destruction, a chain-of-custody record, and a disposition line you can reconcile against your asset register.
Six handoffs, every one of them signed
A certificate is only worth the custody record behind it. Here's the record you get.
Inventory and agreement
We agree the media list, the method per class, and the reporting format before anything moves. Mutual NDA signed first if you want one.
Secure packing
Containers and tamper-evident seals arrive ahead of collection. Seal numbers are logged against your job at the point they're closed.
Collection
Freight is booked and paid by us, tracked end to end, and released only against a signed manifest. You keep a copy at the dock.
Receipt and serialization
Seals are checked, every asset is scanned into our system by serial, and the received list is reconciled against your manifest. Discrepancies are raised the same day.
Sanitization or destruction
Each asset is processed by its agreed method and the result recorded against its serial. Anything that fails sanitization is rerouted to destruction, not retried.
Certificate and settlement
You receive the Certificate of Data Destruction and the disposition report. Anything remarketed is settled at the price we quoted per grade.
What's actually on the Certificate of Data Destruction
Auditors don't accept a logo on a letterhead. Ours is a line-per-asset document you can hand straight to a reviewer.
- Serial number, make, model and capacity of every device
- The sanitization or destruction method applied to each one
- Verification result and the date it was processed
- The technician and facility that carried out the work
- Our certificate numbers and the standard applied
- Final disposition: reused, recycled, or destroyed
Delivered as a signed PDF with the underlying data in CSV, so it drops into your asset register without retyping.
Certified, not self-declared
Gizmogul is certified to The Sustainable Electronics Reuse & Recycling (R2) Standard v3 by Perry Johnson Registrars, Inc. (PJR) under certificate C2026-04479, covering our Canton, Massachusetts facility.
The part that matters for data destruction is the scope. Ours explicitly covers logical data sanitization and downstream vendor management — meaning both the work we do ourselves and the partners who destroy what we can't sanitize are inside the audit, and get re-audited every year.
- Certificate number
- C2026-04479
- Certifying body
- Perry Johnson Registrars
- Certified facility
- 15 Dan Road, Suite 150, Canton, MA 02021, United States
- Valid through
- July 14, 2029
Also certified to the Recycling Industry Operating Standard (RIOS), Rev. 2016 (certificate C2026-04480), covering our quality, environmental, and health & safety management systems.
Shredding is the right answer — sometimes
Plenty of vendors shred everything, because shredding is the easy thing to charge for. A shredded drive is a cost line. A sanitized one is a credit.
Destroy it when
- Your policy or a regulator requires physical destruction, full stop.
- The drive is failed, locked, or can't be verified after sanitization.
- The media class can't be reliably purged — tape, optical, loose flash.
- The residual value is lower than the cost of handling it.
Sanitize and remarket when
- The hardware is in a refresh cycle and still has years of service in it.
- You'd rather offset the cost of the new fleet than add to it.
- Your sustainability reporting counts reuse ahead of recycling.
- You want the same certificate either way — and you do get it.
We'll tell you which side of the line your inventory falls on before you commit, even when the answer costs us the shredding fee. Reuse first, responsible recycling second, landfill never.
Retiring drives? Start with the paperwork you'll be asked for.
Get a Destruction Quote
