Discover, PCs for People work within data security policy

For years, Discover Financial Services didn’t donate its used laptops for reuse due to its data security policies. But a partnership with PCs for People has provided a workaround. 

So far, Discover has sent about 300 decommissioned laptops to the nonprofit, a press release noted. PCs for People is headquartered in Chicago and has several other locations that help people with lower incomes get low-cost computers. Since 1998, PCs for People has refurbished and distributed 260,000 computers.

Discover’s policy is that laptops and computers with hard drives and operating systems intact can’t be given away, which meant that even though “for years Discover has been approached about donating fully functioning machines to nonprofits,” the company refused, the press release noted.

“We don’t want our data going anywhere,” David Klingelhofer, principal IT service management specialist at Discover, said in the press release. “We destroy things like the hard drive from every machine.”

However, Klingelhofer said conversations with PCs for People “moved swiftly” when Discover learned the group was willing to take the machines without software or hardware. 

“None of our security policies had to change, and the nonprofit could still benefit from it,” Klingelhofer said.

Discover anticipates sending thousands more laptops to PCs for People in the years to come. Doug Holck, senior principal of Environmental, Social and Governance at Discover, worked on the partnership and said in the press release that “this lets us responsibly get rid of equipment” and it’s “a win-win for everybody.”