Data destruction glossary

The terms on this site and on your auditor's checklist, defined in one or two sentences each. Alphabetical.

Certificate of Destruction (COD)
The record issued after destruction: what was destroyed, by which method and machine, when, where, and by whom. Under NIST 800-88 it is the sanitization record; under DoDM 5205.07 it must itemize accountable SAP material and be signed by two briefed people.
Chain of custody
The unbroken, documented record of who controlled a piece of media from the moment it left service until it was destroyed.
Clear, Purge, Destroy
NIST 800-88’s three sanitization methods, in rising order of assurance. Clear defeats recovery with ordinary tools; Purge defeats laboratory recovery; Destroy makes the media unusable and the data unrecoverable.
Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)
Unclassified information the government requires to be safeguarded, governed by 32 CFR 2002 and, for contractors, NIST 800-171 and CMMC. CUI may travel by tracked carrier; classified media may not.
Cryptographic erase
Sanitizing encrypted media by destroying its encryption key. Counts as Purge only when the implementation and key handling can be verified.
Data-bearing device
Any component that can hold data at rest: drives, SSDs, tapes, flash cards, phones, tablets, boards with soldered storage, and the hard drives inside printers and copiers.
Degausser
A machine that applies a magnetic field strong enough to erase magnetic media. Only degaussers on the NSA/CSS EPL are approved for classified hard drives and tape. Degaussing does nothing to flash memory.
Disintegrator
A machine that reduces media to particles through a sizing screen. For solid-state media the NSA requires particles of 2 mm or smaller.
DoDM 5205.07
The DoD (Department of War) Special Access Program Security Manual, reissued January 2025. Destruction requirements are in section 4.9.
e-Stewards
The Basel Action Network’s certification for electronics recyclers, with strict limits on exporting hazardous e-waste.
Evaluated Products List (EPL)
NSA/CSS lists of degaussers, disintegrators, and destruction devices that passed evaluation at the Center for Storage Device Sanitization Research. Models are listed by number.
Government-furnished equipment (GFE)
Equipment the government owns and issues to a contractor. Destroying it requires the government’s written permission first.
HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording)
A hard drive that writes to very high-coercivity media by heating it with a laser. No listed degausser can erase it; the NSA’s February 2026 manual allows only incineration for classified HAMR drives. Identified by a Class 1 laser statement on the label.
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Magnetic storage on spinning platters. Sanitized by degaussing and destroyed by shredding; the NSA requires both for classified drives.
Hybrid drive
A hard drive with solid-state cache on its circuit board. Degaussing does not reach the cache, so the board is separated and disintegrated as solid-state media.
IEEE 2883
The 2022 IEEE Standard for Sanitizing Storage. NIST 800-88 Rev. 2 points to it for media-specific techniques.
IT asset disposition (ITAD)
Retiring IT hardware end to end: inventory, data destruction, resale or recycling, and documentation.
NAID AAA
i-SIGMA’s certification for secure destruction providers, audited for chain of custody, personnel screening, and destruction methods.
NIST SP 800-88
The federal guideline for media sanitization. Revision 2 has been final since September 2025.
NSA/CSS Policy Manual 9-12
The NSA’s storage device sanitization manual for classified and national security media. It defines the methods behind the EPLs.
Oersted (Oe)
A unit of magnetic field strength. A degausser’s rating must exceed a drive’s coercivity to erase it; our LM-1 is rated to 5,000 Oe.
Overwriting
Writing patterns over stored data. A Clear technique on magnetic media; unreliable on SSDs, bad sectors, and hidden areas. The “DoD 5220.22-M three-pass wipe” comes from a manual that no longer exists.
Particle size
The largest dimension of destroyed media. The NSA requires 2 mm or less for solid-state media; the GigaBiter’s sizing screen is inside that.
DIN 66399
The German (and, as ISO/IEC 21964, international) standard for destroying data carriers. It defines protection classes 1 to 3 and security levels per media type by maximum particle size: H-1 to H-7 for hard drives, E-1 to E-7 for solid-state and flash, T for tape, O for optical, P for paper. Our solid-state output is E-5; hard drives are degaussed and shredded to H-3.
NPSA
The UK National Protective Security Authority, formerly the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI). It publishes the UK Secure Destruction standard and the Catalogue of Security Equipment, the UK counterpart of the NSA/CSS Evaluated Products Lists.
ASD ISM
The Australian Signals Directorate’s Information Security Manual, whose media guidelines cover sanitisation, destruction, and disposal, with an Evaluated Products List for degaussers. Flowed down to U.S. suppliers on AUKUS and Five Eyes programs.
NERC CIP-011
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s standard for protecting BES cyber system information. Requirement R2 covers reuse and disposal of cyber assets: sanitize or destroy the media before the asset leaves the utility’s control.
R2
SERI’s Responsible Recycling standard for electronics recyclers, covering data security, downstream due diligence, and worker safety. The current version is R2v3.
Sanitization
Any process that makes the data on media unrecoverable, by Clear, Purge, or Destroy.
Serial log
The list of device serial numbers captured before destruction and attached to the certificate.
Service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB)
A federal certification for businesses at least 51 percent owned by service-disabled veterans, with set-aside contracting eligibility.
Solid-state drive (SSD)
Flash storage with no moving parts. Degaussing has no effect on it; NSA-level destruction means disintegration to 2 mm.
Special Access Program (SAP)
A DoD program with security measures beyond collateral classification. Its media follows DoDM 5205.07.
Witnessed destruction
Destruction performed at the owner’s site, in front of the owner’s personnel.

See a real Certificate of Destruction, annotated. Missing a term? Ask and we will add it. For the documents behind these definitions, see the primary sources on the Standards page.