SEATTLE — Old computers retired from state agencies are having their hard drives scrubbed clean by inmates at the Airway Heights Corrections Center near Spokane.
The inmates have been erasing some hard drives for 10 years in the “Computers for Kids” program that recycles rebuilt computers to schools.
KING reports the office of the state’s chief information officer recently ordered that all hard drives from retired agency computers go to the prison after an audit found private information on about 9 percent of the computers sold as surplus.
The Airway Heights hard drive scrubbing is considered the most thorough. And prison officials say the hard drives are handled in a way that prevents inmates from having any access to information.
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