Photo: Dreamstime

Jan. 11, 2016, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed PL 2015, c. 188, a law that removes the environmental licensing requirement for mobile operations shredding electronic storage devices, such as hard drives. (For previous stories on this topic, click here and here.)

The state’s actions mark the culmination of a one-year campaign by the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID), Phoenix, to remove what many considered an arbitrary limitation.

“We were first approached by Guardian Data Destruction, a New Jersey-based NAID member who had already had done considerable groundwork on the initiative,” says NAID CEO Bob Johnson. “When Guardian made us aware of the opportunity for meaningful change, there was already considerable momentum behind it.”

According to Dag Adamson, founder of Newton, Massachusetts-based Lifespan, which provides information technology asset disposition (ITAD)/data destruction services in the U.S. and Canada, and leader of the NAID Task Force assigned to direct the initiative, New Jersey businesses are the ultimate beneficiary.

“NAID applauds the actions of the New Jersey lawmakers in providing their constituents with more discretion in deciding what hard drive destruction solution is best for them,” says Adamson. “As a result, they now have more than 20 mobile data destruction service providers to choose from, where before they had only a few.”

Adamson also credits the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey (CIANJ) for its work on the project.

“The CIANJ did a brilliant job of conveying the appropriate issues to the lawmakers,” Adamson says. “Anyone who has dealt with these issues knows they are difficult to navigate. The CIANJ team, led by Anthony Russo, did a great job guiding the initiative through those challenges.”

The new law does require service providers to be NAID AAA Certified, which the association says was included at the insistence of lawmakers to validate certain vendor qualifications. Currently, an estimated 24 service providers are capable of providing NAID Certified mobile destruction on hard drives to New Jersey customers.

NAID says it is working with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to provide an efficient method for field investigators to validate service provider qualifications. More information will be provided on that aspect as it becomes available.