Most high performance cross cut (level 3 and 4) and high security cross cut (level 6) paper shredders are manufactured with high precision. The majority of these systems are built in Germany where high quality tempered steel is used in the process. Keeping the cutting heads well lubricated increases the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the shredder. Well lubricated cutting heads help prevent paper jams, keep the cutting heads cool and increase the overall productivity of the system.
How to Oil
Cutting heads can be oiled manually by simply squirting oil onto the cutting heads. While this is an effective method, it is sometimes messy and difficult to determine when to perform this function. In order to eliminate the guess work and to make it easy for the operator to oil the cutting heads, Security Engineered Machinery invented the “automatic oiler”. The original auto oiler (LK Series) included a one gallon bottle of oil connected to a pump that hung from the side of the machine. The device was electrically connected to the machine and would automatically draw oil from the bottle and distribute it over the cutting head. Over the years, SEM has made significant improvements to auto oilers.
Today, SEM auto oilers are built-in to the machine. A small bracket holds a gallon jug of specially blended high viscosity lubricating oil on the side of the machine. When the system senses a need for oil, the machine automatically draws the oil. The see-through clear plastic jug and built-in LED indicators on the machine warn the operator when oil is low and requires a change.
Not All Oilers are the Same
Many competitive oilers include a reservoir that requires the operator to pour the oil into the reservoir. In fact, many suppliers provide a funnel to help with this function. The primary complaint with this method is the difficulty of holding the funnel in place while pouring the oil. Another complaint is the misplacement of the funnel and the need to pour the oil into a small opening atop of the reservoir. This usually results in oil spills alongside the machine.
As the inventor of automatic oilers and the ever ending desire to make improvements to the system, SEM has created a system with the operator in mind. The gallon jug itself acts as the reservoir. The containers are simply switched using a quick disconnect that snaps into place. No pouring is needed to fill messy oil reservoirs. The oiler bracket that holds the gallon jug can be placed on either side of the machine or in the back of the machine to accommodate the environment. In the end, simple to install and equally more simple to change the oil helping to prevent possible messy oil spills.
Summary
Oiling of paper shredders are recommended to help maintain and increase the overall effectiveness of the system. Auto oilers that are easily installed and changed like those offered by SEM, almost eliminate the chances for messy oil spills. When considering a high quality, high performance paper shredder, the protection of the investment with an easy to install, easy to operate auto oiler is a highly desirable feature.
Destruction of classified documents and computer media on ships has always meant extra challenges. Compared to an office environment, shipboard locations have much greater concerns with space requirements, durability, fire resistance, and reparability when at sea.
There are many options for document destruction and information destruction equipment that suit a shipboard location in the major categories of equipment- paper shredders, disintegrators, and degaussers. Careful selection can mean better usability and durability.
For paper shredders, pressboard and plastic cabinets became the standard over the last 10 years. These materials often prove fragile on ships, easily cracking or breaking off hinges. There are now select shredders built with metal cabinets that can much better withstand shaking, bumping, and other hard wear.
Another area where paper shredders have lagged other equipment is in fire resistance. Shredders with wooden cabinets that require shredder oil can certainly be seen as a fire hazard. A new type of shredder was approved by the NSA that needs no oiling. This unit utilizes fiber spacers in the cutting head, instead of metal ones. This eliminates metal on metal friction, eliminating the need for oil. Better yet, this machine, the SEM Model 1201CC, also has a metal cabinet, addressing both fire risks.
1201CC
A final area of concern is reparability when at sea. The most serious issue for crosscut paper shredders is damage to the cutting head. This type of damage has almost always required a vendor service technician to perform a major repair when in port, or the replacement of the machine. The SEM Model 1201CC has a cutting head that can be swapped out in minutes by ship personnel, with no special tools or skills. Spare cutting heads can be purchased and stored onboard, which can be especially useful when rolling out quantities of shredders throughout a ship.
Devices for destroying non-paper materials also offer some good choices for shipboard environments. Multi-media disintegrators that used to require large spaces can now be found in configurations that are similar to a standard office paper shredder. Yet, these machine allow the destruction of optical media, flash memory, key tape, and a wide range of plastic and light metal materials. One such machine is the Marine 200 disintegrator.
Marine 200
The choices in magnetic media degaussers have also grown, with some models especially good choices for placement on ships. In particular the newer, compact machines with fixed permanent magnets and manual operation are well sized to go onto a ship. Some of these can be rack mounted. The lack of electronic components makes them reliable and durable.
Careful market research can lead to better choices for secure destruction equipment for ships. It is worth the time.
The rules for destroying sensitive or classified magnetic computer media, like hard drives and tape cartridges, can be confusing. But in actuality, the data destruction process can be boiled down to a simple procedure.
One question that often comes up is about what is and isn’t magnetic media. Magnetic media always involves a material with a surface that holds information in the form of magnetic traces. That includes standard hard drives, tape cartridges, Zip and Jaz disks, and jump drives. It does not include optical media (CD, DVD, BD) or solid state storage devices (SS hard drives, flash memory sticks, thumb drives, etc.). This is important to note, since degaussers are only useful for use on magnetic media. They can’t be used to wipe information off of optical or solid state storage devices.
There are two basic types of required equipment used for destroying magnetic media: degaussers and physical destroyers, like crushers or shredders. For users with government classified data, the choice is simple- the media must be wiped using an NSA listed degausser before disposal. The NSA mandates physical shredding or crushing as a process for final disposal of classified magnetic media. Approved degaussers can be identified by consulting the NSA Evaluated Products List or by looking at the SEM website under degaussers.
For unclassified media, a physical destroyer can be used as the sole destruction method. Devices that crush or shred hard drives and tape cartridges make these items extremely difficult to extract data from. A physical destruction method can be faster and lower cost than degaussing. This process is often seen as the best choice, when one is not concerned with an adversary with extensive resources available to recover data from scraps.
For classified data, physical destroyers is the step two after degaussing. Media looks no different after degaussing. It looks just like the original classified item. As an additional safeguard, the NSA mandates that all HDDs must be both degaussed and physically destroyed. That means that the hard drives can either be crushed or shredded by a product that is evaluated by the NSA and placed on the Evaluated Products List. SEM has examples of both, and you can see an example of a crusher and a shredder on our site.
Most of us at one point or another have owned a paper shredder. In most cases it is sufficient enough for destroying most information that is contained on paper. But today, our information is not only printed on paper, it is stored on magnetic media such as hard drives, thumb drives or optical media such as CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs. Obviously any media other than paper in most cases cannot be destroyed using a paper shredder. We need to use something else to render this information useless.
If you have other forms of media you need to destroy, you will need something larger like a disintegrator. A disintegrator is a form of an industrial paper shredder that can not only destroy paper, but it can destroy a plethora of other optical media and small e-media devices as well. A disintegrator works by using a scissor cutting action where rotating knives are spinning in a destruction chamber where it works with stationary knives to slice the material over and again until the material is small enough to fall through a security screen where it is evacuated into a waste container.
Disintegrators come in several different sizes and can be customized to fit your particular location or destruction requirement. Most disintegrators will require 3-phase power which can range anywhere from 208 volts up to 480 volts. For some, this may be too much machine either physically or financially. However there is a solution.
Perhaps the flexibility of a mixed media destruction system is what you need. A mixed media destruction system consists of a specially designed Model 200 series of office disintegrators.
A Model 200 disintegrator will not replace a heavy duty classified approved paper shredder or a dedicated optical media destroyer for shredding CD/DVDs. It will however give you the capability to destroy paper, CD/DVDs, thumb drives, audio tapes and key tape with just one machine. This is paramount to a SCIF or small office that needs the convenience of being able to destroy all of these different types of media with one small space saving office machine.
What are your future destruction needs? This is the question many of us ponder from time to time. The only way to answer this is to be prepared with a device that can destroy almost everything we put our important information on. Just like insurance, we never think we will need it until the time comes.
HIPAA is an acronym for Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act which was enacted in 1996. It requires the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop regulations protecting the privacy and security of certain health information.
The HIPAA law applies to anyone that has visited any health care facility, basically everyone. Before the law was enacted, the fates of our medical records were left in the hands of the health care professionals. Some disposed of them properly but some just threw them into the dumpster. As with our old credit card statements and other mail or personal information, once they are thrown in the dumpster they are community property and anyone can have access to them.
HIPAA Medicine doctor working with computer interface as medical
Your Health Information Is Protected By Federal Law
Most of the population believes that medical and health information is private and should be protected, and want to know who has access to this information. The Privacy Rule, a Federal law, gives you rights over your health information and sets rules and limits on who can look at and receive your health information. The Privacy Rule applies to all forms of individuals’ protected health information, whether electronic, written, or oral. The Security Rule, a Federal law that protects health information in electronic form, requires entities covered by HIPAA to ensure that electronic protected health information is secure.
How Our Information Is Treated and Disposed Of
The HIPAA Privacy Rule requires that covered entities apply appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the privacy of protected health information (PHI), in any form. This means that covered entities must implement reasonable safeguards to limit incidental, and avoid prohibited, uses and disclosures of PHI, including in connection with the disposal of such information. In addition, the HIPAA Security Rule requires that covered entities implement policies and procedures to address the final disposition of electronic PHI and/or the hardware or electronic media on which it is stored, as well as to implement procedures for removal of electronic PHI from electronic media before the media are made available for re-use. Failing to implement reasonable safeguards to protect PHI in connection with disposal could result in impermissible disclosures of PHI.
Further, covered entities must ensure that their workforce members receive training on and follow the disposal policies and procedures of the covered entity, as necessary and appropriate for each workforce member. Therefore, any workforce member involved in disposing of PHI, or who supervises others who dispose of PHI, must receive training on disposal. This includes any volunteers.
Thus, covered entities are not permitted to simply abandon PHI or dispose of it in dumpsters or other containers that are accessible by the public or other unauthorized persons. However, the Privacy and Security Rules do not require a particular disposal method. Covered entities must review their own circumstances to determine what steps are reasonable to safeguard PHI through disposal, and develop and implement policies and procedures to carry out those steps. In determining what is reasonable, covered entities should assess potential risks to patient privacy, as well as consider such issues as the form, type, and amount of PHI to be disposed. For instance, the disposal of certain types of PHI such as name, social security number, driver’s license number, debit or credit card number, diagnosis, treatment information, or other sensitive information may warrant more care due to the risk that inappropriate access to this information may result in identity theft, employment or other discrimination, or harm to an individual’s reputation.
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.
Maintaining labeled prescription bottles and other PHI in opaque bags in a secure area and using a disposal vendor as a business associate to pick up and shred or otherwise destroy the PHI.
In addition, for practical information on how to handle sanitization of PHI throughout the information life cycle, readers may consult NIST SP 800-88. Guidelines for Media Sanitization
NIST Guidelines
Destruction of media is the ultimate form of sanitization. After media is destroyed, it cannot be reused as originally intended. Physical destruction can be accomplished using a variety of methods, including disintegration, incineration, pulverizing, shredding, and melting.
If destruction is decided upon due to the high security categorization of the information or due to environmental factors, any residual medium should be able to withstand a laboratory attack.
Disintegration, incineration, pulverization, and melting: these sanitization methods are designed to completely destroy the media. They are typically carried out at an outsourced metal destruction or incineration facility with the specific capabilities to perform these activities effectively, securely, and safely. End-of-life data destruction machines can also be purchased to destroy the material on site.
Shredding: paper shredders can be used to destroy paper and in some models, flexible media such as diskettes once the media are physically removed from their outer containers. The shred size of the refuse should be small enough that there is reasonable assurance in proportion to the data confidentiality level that the information cannot be reconstructed.
Optical mass storage media, including compact disks (CD, CD-RW, CD-R, CD-ROM), optical disks (DVD), Blue-ray Discs (BDs) and magneto-optic (MO) disks must be destroyed by pulverizing, crosscut shredding or burning. Destruction of media should be conducted only by trained and authorized personnel. Safety, hazmat, and special disposition needs should be identified and addressed prior to conducting any media destruction.
Enforcement and Penalties for Noncompliance
The Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is responsible for administering and enforcing the standards and may conduct complaint investigations and compliance reviews.
The OCR will seek the cooperation of covered entities and may provide technical assistance to help them comply voluntarily with the Privacy Rule. Covered entities that fail to comply voluntarily with the standards may be subject to civil money penalties. In addition, certain violations of the Privacy Rule may be subject to criminal prosecution.
Civil Money Penalties
OCR may impose a penalty on a covered entity for a failure to comply with a requirement of the Privacy Rule. Penalties will vary significantly depending on factors such as the date of the violation, whether the covered entity knew or should have known of the failure to comply, or whether the covered entity’s failure to comply was due to willful neglect. Penalties may not exceed a calendar year cap for multiple violations of the same requirement. Criminal Penalties A person who knowingly obtains or discloses individually identifiable health information in violation of the Privacy Rule may face a criminal penalty of up to $50,000 and up to one-year imprisonment. The criminal penalties increase to $100,000 and up to five years imprisonment if the wrongful conduct involves false pretenses, and to $250,000 and up to 10 years imprisonment if the wrongful conduct involves the intent to sell, transfer, or use identifiable health information for commercial advantage, personal gain or malicious harm. The Department of Justice is responsible for criminal prosecutions under the Privacy Rule.
Summary
HIPAA covers a broad area of responsibilities. We are all involved in this as we all have our personal records out of our personal control and in such are subject to having our personal information compromised. To understand HIPAA is to understand the relationship between the importance of our PHI and our health care providers and the realization that somebody could potentially obtain our information if the proper safeguards are not adhered to. HIPAA sets these guidelines to protect everybody.
Disintegrators can seem complex and confusing at first glance. These large metal machines break down materials to a tiny particle size and that in itself can make an operator nervous. However, once you know a little bit about these machines you learn they’re not complex at all.
SEM Model 1012 Disintegrator
Disintegrators have been around for a very long time destroying many different types of items; from common paper and plastics to specialized machines capable of destroying electronic components, and currency. These machines can be small office disintegrators or very large systems that need a dedicated room to be set up and run. Disintegrators can destroy a wide variety of different materials, which conventional paper shredders cannot.
Here’s the secret: disintegrators operate like a giant pair of scissors cutting the material over and over again until it is small enough to go through the security screen. These security screens can be easily changed by the user to generate a larger or smaller particle at will, allowing different security mandates to be followed and met. The waste is then evacuated out of the unit and can be put into a bag, dumpster, compactor, or even made in to environmentally friendly briquettes for recycling.
Paper disintegrators come in many shapes and sizes, but there is a formula that will ensure you get the right size unit for your job. SEM calls it the Simple Six.
1. First, you need to figure out your volume of destruction, and add a little to the number to compensate for growth. This can be determined by daily volume or monthly volume. Disintegrators are sized based on the pounds per hour of destruction that you want to achieve, so this volume needs to be translated into pounds.
2. Once you have this number, you will need to decide how many hours a day or week you want to operate the machine. For example, if you have 2,400 lbs. per week to destroy, and you want to operate it only two hours a week, you will need a disintegrator that is capable of at least 1,200 lbs. per hour. If you want to run it for two hours a day for two days a week you will need a unit that is capable of 600 lbs. per hour.
3. Now you will need to decide what particle size will meet your needs or requirements. The 3/32” particle that is mandated by the NSA for classified, CUI, and top secret information is the smallest particle, but be aware that the smaller the particle the slower the machine will work because the material has to stay in the destruction chamber longer to get to that particle size.
4. The next decision is: how do you want to collect the material? In a bag, send it outside to a dumpster or compactor, or make it into eco-friendly briquettes?
SEM Green Central Destruction System
5. Where do you want to operate the machine? These are industrial pieces of equipment and would not be a good fit in a typical office environment. You will need to check the disintegrator dimensions to see if you have the room to accommodate the size machine you are looking for.
6. What kind of power is available in your chosen space? Most disintegrators operate on 3-phase power and will support either 460V/208V or 230V/3-ph/60Hz power. Important- this must be verified prior to ordering-a mistake in the power can be costly to fix once at site.
The answer to these simple questions will easily lead you to the right disintegrator for exactly what you want to accomplish. If you still have questions or need additional consultation, start a chat with us here in the help window or fill out a data destruction questionnaire.
If you are contemplating the purchase of a paper shredder, one of the key choices you must make is the security level or shred size. So how do you make the choice? Here are a couple guidelines that have served us well over the years.
First, use the largest shred size that will meet the security requirement. Models with larger shred sizes are more durable and offer more capacity for less cost.
Second, there is security in volume. If your volume is heavy, you might consider a larger shred size. It is a more difficult task to reconstruct one-thousand pages than it is to reconstruct ten pages. Another helpful tool is the international destruction standard known as DIN 32 757 (Deutsche Industrial Norm). Shredder manufacturers are now listing six levels of shred sizes, but only five are actually part of the DIN Standard. The reason these are important is because they are observed by all of the major shredder manufacturers. The international standards are used in the marketing of this equipment and are now a significant part of the government procurement process. Let’s review these different levels.
Level 1
Security Level 1 and 2 are strip shred requirements. Documents are cut into strips the length of the paper. These are the lowest security levels. Level 1 is a strip shred of ½” or smaller. Level 2 is a strip shred of ¼” or less. Strip shredders have become less popular in recent years as security concerns have increased. We have stopped actively marketing this type of shredder for this reason.
Level 4 Security Levels 3, 4, and 5 are produced by crosscut shredders. These shredders cut in two directions and produce confetti of various sizes. Security Level 3 is considered a medium security level and a fairly large crosscut particle measuring 3/16” X 3” or less. Security Level 4 is a medium-high security particle measuring 3/32” X 5/8” or less. Level 3 is adequate to meet most unclassified government applications. But if you have doubts, move up to Level 4.
Security Level 5 is a high security particle measuring 1/32” X ½” or less. This was the particle size used for classified documents until the US Intelligence Community changed the standard in 2003. If you move to a Level 5 model, you will notice a drastic reduction in capacity. It would be worth your time to take a few minutes to compare the cost and the capacity loss by going to this much smaller shred size.
Although the highest security level is now commonly being called Level 6 by manufacturers, there actually is no Level 6 DIN standard. So technically there is no such thing as a Level 6 shredder. However, if you need to shred classified documents, you are required to select a model listed on the National Security Agency’s Evaluated Products List (EPL). The 1/32” X 7/32” (1mm X 5mm) or smaller particle is the current US standard for classified documents. The latest shredder EPL (as well as other types of destruction equipment) can be found here.
Level 6
If you still have doubts what shred size to choose after reading this, contact SEM for additional information.
How to Oil
Summary
Security Levels 3, 4, and 5 are produced by crosscut shredders. These shredders cut in two directions and produce confetti of various sizes. Security Level 3 is considered a medium security level and a fairly large crosscut particle measuring 3/16” X 3” or less. Security Level 4 is a medium-high security particle measuring 3/32” X 5/8” or less. Level 3 is adequate to meet most unclassified government applications. But if you have doubts, move up to Level 4.