Disposal of personal data

Any material which contains personal information about identifiable individuals must be protected from unauthorised access and disclosure throughout its lifecycle, from creation to final disposal, as failure to protect such information may result in significant financial and reputational damage to the University.

Disposal of data in paper records (shredding)

The University’s confidential paper shredding and disposal service is now provided by Restore Datashred.

The Restore service is provided through a centrally managed contract rather than through individual local contracts as was previously the case, so any member of staff can use any Restore console to dispose of confidential paper.

Please use Restore shredding consoles to dispose of confidential paper in preference to individual shredders.

If your area does not have access to a convenient Restore console please contact the Information Governance Office (IGO) via email to confidential.waste@manchester.ac.uk to arrange to have a console delivered.

If you require a one off collection of material to be shredded, or have any other questions relating to the shredding service please contact the IGO via email to confidential.waste@manchester.ac.uk or telephone on 55789.

Please note that the “blue bag” collection by Estates and Facilities does NOT provide a secure disposal route for confidential waste.

Disposal of personal data in electronic form

Personal data should only be stored on secure University network drives and MUST NOT be stored on portable media or PC drives unless appropriately encrypted.
The following guidance is provided in the event that personal data has been inappropriately stored eg on PCs,CDs, DVDs, floppy disks, videos, USB drives.

Contact the IT Support Centre to determine if it is possible to erase the data or ask them to arrange for it to be destroyed. All such equipment must be kept in a secure location until collected.

CDs containing personal data must NOT be put in CD recycling bins.

Information which must not be destroyed

Before disposing of documents, either in paper or on electronic media, please consult the University’s Records Retention Schedule to check whether the documents need to be retained for a defined period.

If you have large volumes of material to dispose of please contact the Information Governance Office in the first instance, who will advise on retention and archiving matters.