O&O SafeErase ensures that companies can securely delete their data in accordance with the guidelines of the US Department of Defense (DoD) and the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). The new version 18 includes even more efficient algorithms so that secure deletion can be performed even faster.

This involves the use of recognized deletion methods defined in the DoD and BSI guidelines. In the DoD standard, also known as DoD 5220.22-M, the original data location is overwritten with a random value, then with the complement of that random value, and finally with a random value again. Each overwrite is verified to ensure that the data was overwritten correctly.