Born-Digital vs. Digitized Records: FAQs

A digitized record is a digital copy of a document that originally existed in physical form. It is created by scanning, photographing, or otherwise converting a paper document into an electronic file — typically a PDF, TIFF, or JPEG.

Examples of digitized records include scanned contracts, photographed receipts, scanned patient intake forms, and converted architectural drawings. The key distinction is that a digitized record is a copy of a physical original, while a born-digital record is the original.

Valley Green Shredding's document scanning services create high-quality digitized records with OCR (optical character recognition) so the text within scanned documents is fully searchable.

It depends on the jurisdiction, industry, and type of record. In many cases, yes — federal and Massachusetts state laws generally accept properly scanned copies as equivalent to originals for business and legal purposes. The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) and the federal ESIGN Act both support the legal validity of electronic records.

However, there are important exceptions. Some records may need to be retained in their original physical form, including:

• Original contracts with wet ink signatures (depending on the agreement terms)
• Certain court documents and legal filings
• Some vital records (birth certificates, death certificates)
• Records where the original contains physical characteristics that matter (watermarks, embossed seals, original signatures on negotiable instruments)

Before destroying any paper originals after scanning, consult your legal counsel or records management officer to confirm that digitized copies are acceptable for your specific record types and regulatory environment.

You should only destroy paper originals after completing the following steps:

• Quality verification — Confirm that every scanned image is complete, legible, and accurately represents the original document. Check for missing pages, skewed scans, and unreadable text.
• Indexing and accessibility — Ensure the digitized files are properly named, indexed, and stored in a system where authorized users can retrieve them.
• Retention check — Verify that no law, regulation, or company policy requires you to retain the physical original. Review your Massachusetts records retention schedule and any industry-specific requirements (HIPAA, GLBA, etc.).
• Backup confirmation — Confirm that the digital files are backed up according to your disaster recovery plan before destroying the only physical copy.

Once these checks are complete, you can schedule secure document shredding with Valley Green Shredding. We provide a Certificate of Destruction that documents exactly when and how the originals were destroyed — an important record to keep alongside your digitized files.

Simply deleting files, emptying the recycle bin, or reformatting a hard drive does not securely destroy data. Deleted files can often be recovered with commercially available forensic tools. For true destruction of born-digital records, the physical storage media must be destroyed or sanitized using approved methods.

Recommended destruction methods include:

• Physical shredding — Hard drives and SSDs are fed through an industrial shredder that reduces them to small fragments. This is the most definitive method.
• Degaussing — A powerful magnetic field erases data on magnetic media (traditional hard drives, tapes). Note: degaussing does not work on SSDs or flash storage.
• Cryptographic erasure — For encrypted drives, securely destroying the encryption key renders all data unrecoverable. This is effective but requires that encryption was properly implemented from the start.

Valley Green Shredding provides NAID AAA Certified hard drive and electronic media destruction that meets NIST 800-88 guidelines. We can destroy hard drives, SSDs, USB drives, backup tapes, CDs/DVDs, and other electronic storage media either on-site or at our secure facility.

We provide a complete records lifecycle solution that covers both sides of the physical-digital spectrum:

• Document scanning — Our scanning services convert your paper records into searchable digital files, with options for medical records, legal discovery, accounts payable, HR files, and large-format documents.
• Paper shredding — Once originals have been scanned and verified (or when retention periods expire), we provide NAID AAA Certified document shredding with a Certificate of Destruction.
• Hard drive destruction — When electronic storage devices reach end-of-life, our hard drive destruction service physically shreds drives so born-digital data cannot be recovered.
• Ongoing service — Our scheduled recurring service with secure containers provides a convenient, compliant way to manage day-to-day document disposal.

Every service is performed by bonded, background-checked employees and documented with a Certificate of Destruction. Contact us to discuss your specific needs.