Destruction

If digital or physical security goods are not reclaimed by the customer at the end of the agreed storage period, they must be disposed of properly. In line with the safe storage of collateral goods, the requirements with regard to their proper destruction have also risen in recent years. The European Basic Data Protection Regulation to be applied from 25.05.2018 will regulate the handling of personal data in a new way, so that all personal data stored within the framework of the archiving service must be evaluated when security objects are destroyed and, if necessary, cannot be deleted with these objects in a recoverable form.

Depending on the material and research area, this data in the pharmaceutical industry can refer not only to documents but also to other security goods such as human analysis samples if these are linked (anonymously) with personal data. Thus, in terms of data protection, "the extraction of information from samples is to be classified as the collection of personal data", as the EU Working Party confirmed in an opinion in 2007.

As a global service provider, Rhenus dealt at an early stage with the issue of the professional destruction and disposal of collateral goods in accordance with the new European directive, which includes physical documents, other goods such as samples, retained samples, temperature-controlled storage and cell lines, as well as data carriers. Rhenus has solutions for each of these very different types of collateral that can be implemented within the Rhenus Group and thus from a single source. Rhenus' services thus cover all phases of the document or sample life cycle in archiving, from sample transfer at the archive location to professional destruction and disposal.