Data Privacy Day 2025: Time for Data Destruction to Become Standard Business Practice

The report argues that organizations must adopt a data lifecycle approach: create, use, then securely erase data when it no longer has business value. It highlights legal drivers (e.g., GDPR 'right to be forgotten'), operational and sustainability costs of data hoarding, the need for deletion timelines, and requirements for verifiable erasure before disposal or repurposing of equipment to reduce risk and demonstrate compliance.