The presence of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in health care and its impact on associated industries are nothing new. But as hacks are increasing in frequency, the need for compliance is more important than ever in businesses whose user data is protected under HIPAA.

“Covered entities,” as these businesses are called, are required to comply with HIPAA regulations in safeguarding patient/customer personal information. But HIPAA’s security and privacy standards fail to provide specifics on maintaining compliance for paper or electronic patient health information (PHI). They do give some recommendations such as locking file cabinets and shredding paper, but when it comes to disposal of obsolete data, destruction is the only rule.

Taken from the hhs.gov site:

“In general, examples of proper disposal methods may include, but are not limited to:

• For PHI in paper records, shredding, burning, pulping, or pulverizing the records so that PHI is rendered essentially unreadable, indecipherable, and otherwise cannot be reconstructed.
• For PHI on electronic media, clearing (using software or hardware products to overwrite media with non-sensitive data), purging (degaussing or exposing the media to a strong magnetic field in order to disrupt the recorded magnetic domains), or destroying the media (disintegration, pulverization, melting, incinerating, or shredding).”

According to the regulations, computers and electronic media may be reused or disposed of, but the PHI must be cleared.

That’s a useful guideline that was current at the time of writing in 2009. But since then, at RDS we’ve researched data destruction methods for current media and accounted for the most recent means of cyberattack. We’ve found that degaussing (demagnetizing) is no longer as reliable for destroying data as shredding is, due to recent changes in the line density of hard drive devices to increase their recording capacity. With increased line density comes increased magnetism, but degaussing machines haven’t necessarily caught up. As a result, it’s more difficult to find degaussing machines that create a strong enough magnetic field to destroy the data on such drives.

So shred, and be compliant!

127 tons of electronic junk… in just 2 months!!

“India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has intercepted five huge containers of old computer parts being dumped illegally in Chennai in just two months. Altogether it has found 127 tonnes of e-waste, much of which contains nickel, mercury and lead and could be linked to environmental damage as well as health concerns for”

read more…

Why are we dumping our old junk on China, India and Africa?  People in my neighborhood complain about a new water tower… Just imagine if someone dumped 127 tons of electronic scrap at the end of the block!!  This has got to stop!!

Source… 23 Aug 2010 14:23 | by a staff writer | posted in Business Read more: http://www.techeye.net/business/chennai-india-being-used-as-e-waste-dumping-ground#ixzz0xipo1mvT

There’s a ton of great information here from the Environmental Science & Technology Journal… following is a brief synopsis from their web site, click the link for further information… good reading for just before bed time… it gets pretty technical… The long and short of it… There are a lot of obsolete computers out there, and the outlook is for an increase.  Environmentally sound recycling practice is a critical issue

E-Scrap 2010: Emerging economies, growing waste stream

Electronic waste (e-waste) has emerged as a new policy priority around the world. Motivations to address e-waste include rapidly growing waste streams, concern over the environmental fate of heavy metals and other substances in e-waste, and impacts of informal recycling in developing countries. Policy responses to global e-waste focus on banning international trade in end-of-life electronics, the premise being that e-waste is mainly generated in the developed world and then exported to the developing world. Sales of electronics have, however, been growing rapidly in developing nations, raising the question of whether informal recycling in developing countries driven by international trade or domestic generation. This paper addresses this question by forecasting the global generation of obsolete personal computers (PCs) using the logistic model and material flow analysis. Results show that the volume of obsolete PCs generated in developing regions will exceed that of developed regions by 2016−2018. By 2030, the obsolete PCs from developing regions will reach 400−700 million units, far more than from developed regions at 200−300 million units. Future policies to mitigate the impacts of informal recycling should address the domestic situation in developing countries.

Source, References and Credits.

RenovoData Services is partnering with The Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce and the Edina Chamber of Commerce to provide Electronics Recycling and Free Hard Drive Shredding at the event.

• When – August 19th 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
• Where – Grace Church – 9301 Eden Prairie Road, Eden Prairie, MN 55347 (map)
• What :

1. Recycling of PC’s & Laptops, Cell Phones, Small Printers, Small Office Devices at no charge.
2. Recycling of Monitors, Large Printers, TV’s and small appliances at 35 cents per pound.

This recycling event will take place in support of the E-Shared Partnership Event – Progressive Networking Luncheon…. see details below..

Registration: Click here to Register | or call (952)-944-2830
Price: Members: $25, Non-Members: $40

1. A 60 second commercial about your business
2. A large stack of business card

Shredded hard drives and back-up tapes will tell no tale…  Here’s an article highlighting the importance of the need for securing physical information assets…

Jul 14, 2010 | 04:50 PM

By Tim Wilson
DarkReading

Two Major Breaches Caused By Loss Of Physical Media

Online attacks might be getting more sophisticated every day, but two incidents last week are reminding the industry that the loss of physical storage media is still among the most common causes of data breaches.

Recent studies indicate that the theft of physical media remains one of the most common causes of data breaches. Both AMR and the California DHCS have discovered that the hard way.

read more…

We have a 100% green solution for data security risks and e-waste recycling.