320 - Disposal of Media
320.1 PURPOSE
The purpose of this policy is to outline the proper disposal of media (physical or electronic) for the Hartwell County Sheriff’s Department. These rules are in place to protect sensitive and classified information, employees and the Hartwell County Sheriff’s Department.
Inappropriate disposal of Hartwell County Sheriff’s Department, the FBI Criminal Justice Information (CJI) and media may put employees of the Hartwell County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI at risk.
320.2 SCOPE
This policy applies to all employees, County IT employees, contractors, volunteer staff, and other workers at the Hartwell County Sheriff’s Department with access to FBI CJIS systems and/or data, sensitive and classified data, and media. This policy applies to all equipment that processes, stores, and/or transmits FBI CJI and classified and sensitive data that is owned or leased by the Hartwell County Sheriff’s Department.
320.3 POLICY
When no longer usable, hard drives, diskettes, tape cartridges, CDs, ribbons, hard copies, printouts, and other similar items used to process, store and/or transmit FBI CJI and classified and sensitive data shall be properly disposed of in accordance with measures established by the Hartwell County Sheriff’s Department in coordination with the County IT Department.
Physical media (print-outs and other physical media) shall be disposed of by one of the following methods:
- CD's and DVD'S shall be placed in locked shredding bins for shred company to come on-site and shred, witnessed by Department personnel throughout the entire process.
Electronic media (computers, tablets, hard-drives, tape cartridge, printer ribbons, flash drives, printer and copier Hard-drives, etc.) Shall be disposed of by one of the following methods:
- Overwriting (at least 3 times) - an effective method of clearing data from magnetic media. As the name implies, overwriting uses a program to write (1s, 0s, or a combination of both) onto the location of the media where the file to be sanitized is located.
- Degaussing - a method to magnetically erase data from magnetic media. Two types of degaussing exist: strong magnets and electric degausses. Note that common magnets (e.g., those used to hang a picture on a wall) are fairly weak and cannot effectively degauss magnetic media.
- Destruction – a method of destroying magnetic media. As the name implies, destruction of magnetic media is to physically dismantle by methods of crushing, disassembling, etc., ensuring that the platters have been physically destroyed so that no data can be pulled.
Disposal of Media IT systems that have been used to process, store, or transmit FBI CJI and/or sensitive and classified information shall not be released from County IT’s control until the equipment has been sanitized and all stored information has been cleared using one of the above methods.
320.4 ENFORCEMENT
Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
Information Technology Use