Barnstable County Holds First Ever Regional Hard Drive Disposal
Three Barnstable County Departments came together for the County’s first ever Regional Hard Drive Disposal. Barnstable County IT Department along with the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension and AmeriCorps were all part of the successful regional initiative, held on the Barnstable County Complex on June 16th. The idea of a regional need for safe & thorough hard drive disposal began in the IT Department’s regional IT Managers Group, also known as the CATMAN (Cape & Islands Technology Managers) Group. [su_pullquote]”What a great opportunity to get out and stay connected. Within a municipality, it feels isolated. I look forward to getting to know my neighboring community tech heroes and their associations.” -Town IT Technician[/su_pullquote] The CATMAN Group is comprised of Town IT Directors & Managers across the Cape & Islands and meets regularly to share information, common challenges & solutions in technology for the region. The need for a one-time sweep or perhaps annual regional disposal solution was echoed throughout the towns. The hard drives contain sensitive, municipal information and thorough data destruction and disposal are time consuming on an individual basis. As the facilitator for the CATMAN Group, BCIT heard the regional need and started working on a regional solution that would allow secure, effective, environmentally responsible and affordable disposal of hard drives across the Cape.
Barnstable County Working Together
Barnstable County IT Department started looking for the right vendors to handle the regional effort and pricing for the County. [su_pullquote align=”right”]”By being able to pool resources to dispose of unclassified hard drives, this is a cost effective method of properly disposing of hard drives.” -CATMAN Member[/su_pullquote]After certain vendors were identified, BCIT continued researching the list of vendors that offer services that meet the industry standards for thorough data destruction, keeping the highest security standards at the top of their priority list. Stricter standards have made some older but very common data destruction practices no longer meet the new, tighter security requirements.
Cape Cod Cooperative Extension joined the vendor selection process to help ensure that the after destruction process is in line with Barnstable County’s high standards of environmental responsibility. The process took a few months to come up with a vendor that satisfied all of our requirements. With all of the electronic waste society produces, it is important it be disposed of differently and safely, inline with e-Steward best practices.
AmeriCorps provided volunteers for the on campus event held on Monday June 16th. Municipalities from across the Cape dropped their hard drives into a secure gaylord box with vendor staff on site. Over half of the towns signed up for the event and all feedback from participating towns was positive and encouraged future hard drive disposals and other regional efforts at the County.
At the end of the collection a total of 808 hard drives containing sensitive government information were securely collected, the data destroyed and then disposed of in an environmentally safe & sound manner. We are thrilled with the results and feedback from the group requested this be a repeat event in the future.
The CATMAN Group and Barnstable County IT Department would like to thank Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, AmeriCorps, Chief Procurement Officer Elaine Davis and the Facilities Department for joining this regional initiative and helping to deliver valuable County services across Cape Cod. We look forward to working together to bring future Barnstable County regional initiatives.