Sensitive information recovered from electronic recycling depots in Alberta, and BC

CALGARY, May 29, 2012 /CNW/ - The Electronic Recycling Association of Alberta is a non profit organization, based in Calgary. The ERA has been approached by businesses and government departments across the province of Alberta, and in British Columbia.

In Alberta, the ARMA (Alberta Management Recycling Authority) operates in conjunction with municipal landfills, electronic waste collection sites.

These sites are usually poorly manned and supervised, and in many cases in very remote parts of the province.

The corporations and government departments that approached the ERA, have had their computers, laptops, servers, and event routers and switches, removed from these sites, and sold, without having their information erased. In some cases the processors that collected the equipment for recycling on behalf of ARMA have resold these items, with sensitive data inside.

In  British Columbia, Encorp Inc operates in conduction with Bottle depots, electronic waste collection sites.

These bottle depots are frequented by various scrap dealers, and operated by private owners who consider profits prior to anything else. Laptops, servers, computers and routers, delivered for recycling, that are still in working condition, have been recorded leaving the premises to private buyers. These items were then recovered by ERA and sensitive information was extracted.

The ERA is warning the public, corporations and government departments to erase their hard drives, or remove them completely before bringing them to any electronic waste collection depots. The ERA also offers mobile hard drive shredding services to guarantee total data destruction.

For more information about the companies affected, and if your corporate data might have been compromised, please contact the ERA directly. If you have dropped off your computers at any of the mentioned depots in the past 2 years, you might have been victim to data theft.

Media Contact

Bojan Paduh 403-262-4488  604-214-4483 [email protected] www.era.ca