We provide solutions to major corporations, including blue-chip companies and major multinationals, as well as SMEs, local authorities and central government departments and educational institutions.
Ask yourself the following questions about your current PC
decommissioning process:

Is your PC decommissioning service cost-effective?

* Are you using cutting-edge software that guarantees the destruction of all confidential data?
* Are you meeting all environmental and data protection legislation?
* Are you sure that none of your IT equipment is ending up in landfill?
* What proportion of your computers are going to charity?
* Are you getting any CSR or publicity benefits?

Why use Computer Aid?

* Our PC decommissioning service is free, if you deliver the equipment to our north London workshop.
* We use Blancco software, which meets all recognised international data destruction standards.
* We assume full legal liability for equipment we receive and are compliant with the WEEE directive and Data Protection Act.
* We use recycling facilities that guarantee 0% of unusable equipment ends up in landfill
* 100% of donated computers that pass our stringent quality tests are provided to not-for-profit organisations in the developing world
* We fully asset track all equipment donated to us, through to exactly where it goes in a developing country.
* We offer unrivalled CSR and PR benefits and can provide you with stories and photos for internal or external publicity

We also accept donations from individuals. To find out more please visit the individual PC donations page.

To find out more email sion@computeraid.org or call 020 8361 5540

Data destruction

Organisations have an obligation under the Data Protection Act 1998 to ensure that confidential data about employees or customers is not disclosed without the consent of the individual concerned. Computer Aid is registered in accordance with the requirements of the UK Data Protection Act 1998.

All donated computers received by Computer Aid are wiped using Blancco software, which guarantees the unrecoverable removal of 100% of data. This free-of-charge service means companies can be sure that none of their data can be retrieved and that they are fully compliant with the Data Protection Act. Hard disks that are faulty or cannot be wiped of data are destroyed.

Blancco is widely accepted as the industry-leading data destruction software. It was the first software to receive CESG-certification to InfoSec 5 standard and meets all recognised international data destruction standards, including standards set by the UK's Communications Electronics Security Group (CESG) and by the US Department of Defence.

Data destruction/hardware asset report: Computer Aid can provide companies with a report on the data wiping of their hard drives for a modest cost. The report will include a full hardware asset inventory for all base units that have been data-wiped. Back to top

Recycling

Computer Aid's recycling process exceeds WEEE Directive requirements. Any equipment that fails our tests for reuse is processed in state-of-the art recycling facilities, with 0% going to landfill.

We use two recycling facilities within the EU for processing unusable equipment, both of which have ISO 14001 (environmental management) certification. CRT monitors are sent to a specialist facility that manually separates each monitor into its components, which are then recycled or reclaimed. All other computer equipment is sent to a specialist plant where waste is incinerated in a state-of-the-art furnace. The furnace produces optimum levels of raw materials and creates zero waste. Back to top

Legal liabilities

Computer Aid assumes full legal liability for equipment that we receive. We have public liability insurance, which covers all hardware donated to us as soon as it comes into our possession as well as data wiping insurance. Back to top

Equipment accepted

Computer Aid accepts any working Pentium 4 computers and laptops, as well as 15" and 17" monitors manufactured after the year 2002. We also welcome peripherals and spare parts including laptop power adaptors, power cables, keyboards and mice. We also take other equipment that you may have, but if it doesn't meet our above specifications and we are unable to reuse it, we will ask you for a contribution towards the recycling costs.

From time to time, we accept other equipment, including networking devices. A full list of equipment and the technical specifications accepted can be found on the specifications page.

You can also recycle your used printer cartridges and mobile phones in aid of Computer Aid. To request a free box for your office, please fill in the form on our cartridge recycling page.

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Certification provided

- Letter of Disposal. This lists the quantities of equipment donated and states that we accepts full legal responsibility for the equipment and that all hard disks will be wiped to US Ministry of Defence standards. This letter can be used for auditing purposes.

- Certificate of Donation. This thanks you for your donation and can be displayed for employees and visitors to see.

- Contractual agreements. Computer Aid has a standard contract that it provides to larger donors, detailing our service level agreement. This contract can be tailored to your company's needs.

- Data destruction report. Computer Aid can provide companies with a report on the data wiping of their hard drives for a modest cost.

-Waste Transfer Note. Should Computer Aid arrange a collection, it will provide each IT donor with a Waste Transfer Note, as required by the Environment AgencyEraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Works with Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008.

Eraser is Free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License.
Why Use Eraser?

Most people have some data that they would rather not share with others - passwords, personal information, classified documents from work, financial records, self-written poems, the list can be continued forever.

Perhaps you have saved some of this information on your computer where it is conveniently at your reach, but when the time comes to remove the data from your hard disk, things get a bit more complicated and maintaining your privacy is not as simple as it may have seemed at first.

Your first thought may be that when you 'delete' the file, the data is gone. Not quite, when you delete a file, the operating system does not really remove the file from the disk; it only removes the reference of the file from the file system table. The file remains on the disk until another file is created over it, and even after that, it might be possible to recover data by studying the magnetic fields on the disk platter surface.

Before the file is overwritten, anyone can easily retrieve it with a disk maintenance or an undelete utility.

There are several problems in secure file removal, mostly caused by the use of write cache, construction of the hard disk and the use of data encoding. These problems have been taken into consideration when Eraser was designed, and because of this intuitive design and a simple user interface, you can safely and easily erase private data from your hard drive.
Eraser Features

* It works with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.
o Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000 can still be used with version 5.7!
* It works with any drive that works with Windows
* Secure drive erasure methods are supported out of the box
* Erases files, folders and their previous deleted counterparts
* Works with an extremely customisable Scheduler