A certificate of destruction is the written record a shredding or disposal firm gives you to confirm that your confidential material has been destroyed. It typically states what was collected, the date, and the method of destruction, so you have evidence the records no longer exist.
Why businesses keep them
UK data protection law says personal information should be “kept for no longer than is necessary” and handled with “appropriate security”, and the organisation holding it has to be able to show it complies. A certificate is that proof for the paper you’ve disposed of: filed with your retention schedule, it shows which boxes went, when, and through whom.
The British Standard for this work is BS EN 15713, a code of practice for the secure destruction of confidential and sensitive material, which covers collection, storage, transport, destruction methods and certification. It’s worth asking a destruction firm whether it works to it. As with any business waste, GOV.UK says to check that the firm taking it away is a registered waste carrier and to complete a waste transfer note.
At Wigwam
A unit makes a secure home for your archive while records are kept: each unit has its own alarm, the outside doors have access control, and our sites are covered by CCTV monitored around the clock by a professional monitoring company.
We don’t shred documents or issue certificates ourselves, so when boxes reach their destruction date, book a confidential shredding firm that gives you a certificate of destruction. If the firm is collecting from your unit, you or a colleague you’ve shared access with will need to be there to let them in. Keep the certificates with your box index at the office, so your records show the full journey from storage to destruction.
Call us on 0800 2545585 to talk about storing your records.
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Our document storage page explains how a unit works for records, or call us on 0800 2545585 to talk about storing them.