What is BS EN 15713 - Secure destruction of confidential and sensitive material about?
From paper documents to ID cards, hard drives and counterfeit products, this standard outlines the procedures and controls necessary to ensure destruction of confidential and sensitive material.
BS EN 15713:2023 covers various aspects of the process, including collection, storage, transportation, destruction methods, and certification.
Who is BS EN 15713 - Secure destruction of confidential and sensitive material for?
- Information destruction service providers
- Data controllers of large organizations, businesses, and public sector organizations
- Security or information security officers
- Trade or industry associations
What does BS EN 15713 - Secure destruction of confidential and sensitive material cover?
This document provides recommendations and requirements for the procedures, processes and performance monitoring to be implemented for the management and control of the physical destruction of confidential and sensitive material. This is to ensure that such material is disposed of securely and safely. It can also be applied to objects that need to be destroyed to ensure product or brand integrity.
BS EN 15713 covers:
- on site destruction using mobile equipment brought in
- offsite destruction using equipment at a destruction facility
- co-location of confidential or sensitive material in same place as destruction equipment.
NOTE: BS EN 15713:2023 does not cover destruction by erasure (e.g. crypto erasure, data overwriting, degaussing or other forms of magnetic/electronic erasure).
Why should you use BS EN 15713:2023?
Risk mitigation: it helps you safeguard sensitive information and prevent unauthorized access. It can reduce the risk of data breaches, identity theft and information leakage.
Clarity: BS EN 15713 makes clear the requirements for offering a professional destruction service, and helps their customers understand the procedures and the choices available to them when selecting levels of destruction.
Reassurance: users can be assured that any object or data carrier is destroyed in such a way that reproduction of information is either impossible or only possible with considerable expenditure in terms of personnel, resources and time. For added reassurance, destruction outcome tables are detailed in the standard.
Current and futureproof: BS EN 15713 provides a modern benchmark for the latest available appropriate procedures and processes for organizations that want to safely destroy materials.
Alignment: it now harmonizes with the requirements of regulation such as GDPR, standards such as ISO/IEC 27001, and data controllers’ expectations regarding process and risk management in relation to information security, making organizational information security more seamless and robust.
Expertise: the information in BS EN 15713 can help users to develop expertise in information destruction, improve operational efficiency and accelerate the adoption of innovation.
Reputation: using BS EN 15713 demonstrates a commitment to maintaining the confidentiality and privacy of stakeholders' information that can enhance trust and reputation and smooth new market entry.
What’s new about BS EN 15713:2023?
The importance of confidential data and sensitive material, its potential value, and maintaining security of content when items have reached end of useful life have all changed massively since 2009. Hence this major revision of BS EN 15713:2009.
At double the length of its predecessor, BS EN 15713:2023:
- consolidates the current requirements of data protection and brand integrity with the practices of information destruction service providers throughout Europe
- aligns better with the requirements of regulation such as GDPR, other international standards such as ISO/IEC 27001, and data controllers’ expectations with regard to process and risk management in relation to information security.
BS EN 15713 contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 on decent work and economic growth, Goal 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure and Goal 12 on responsible consumption and production.
