Wiping, degaussing, or reformatting a hard drive or other electronic device doesn’t completely remove data from the device, and forensic software programs can recover the information. A quick Internet search reveals countless instructional blogs and videos that walk through the data recovery process. Although these are aimed at people who accidentally wipe or reformat their machines, the same strategies can be used by criminals to access private and confidential data from discarded equipment. You should always destroy hard drives or other electronic devices before recycling because there is no way to ensure that equipment sent for recycling will not be accessed by information thieves.