Disposing of a SIM card: This method is safe

Most people simply dispose of an old SIM card in the household waste. This is not sensible: data is stored on the card. Find out which method is safe in this article.

Disposing of a SIM card: Where to put it?

• Small and inconspicuous – the SIM card. When it has had its day, it usually ends up in the rubbish. At best, it has been deactivated beforehand.
• However, a SIM card is not only for making phone calls. A lot of data is stored on the small cards that can easily be read. So this kind of disposal is anything but safe – after all, you wouldn’t just throw away a hard drive either.
• Now you could reach for the scissors and cut the SIM card once, similar to a credit card. A credit card is thereby invalidated, the data on a SIM card can still be reconstructed – so it is not secure either.
• To dispose of a SIM card in a truly secure manner, it must be shredded, using a specific method. Shredders are classified according to different levels of security, i.e. how small they shred a document.
• The shredding level E4-E5 counts as safe disposal of a SIM card. Shredded in this way, the data can definitely no longer be reconstructed. In the course of data security, some companies have specialised in the safe disposal of storage media.
• There you can hand in your SIM card and be sure that no one can access your data. This is especially interesting for SIM cards used for business purposes.