If you’ve recently opened a bank account, started working with a new accountant, or gone into a doctor’s office, you know the paperwork they require, with many standard questions regarding your Social Security number, address, insurance policy numbers, and other personal details. You may wonder where all their papers go when they are no longer needed. You want to be sure that your personal information is disposed of securely. Likewise, if you are a business owner who collects personal information from customers and clients, you should have a detailed information security policy in place so that their sensitive information is secure.
Having an information security policy that includes clear document destruction policies for your office staff will help everyone stay consistent. A good place to start is by looking at each of your work processes and how data and documents flow.
Here are the steps to determine the right policies:
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Determine what type of information you are gathering and how it is collected.
Whether it is paper documents or stored on hard drives, it’s likely you have been storing your files in a locked space.
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Get Advice From Your Attorneys and Accountants
What data and which documents must you keep? What information requires special handling and what can be thrown out? After you get this advice, you should understand the issues you face and the scope of potential solutions.
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Information Security Goes Beyond Document Destruction
Document destruction is just one part of an overall records retention, destruction, and management policy that will help your organization correctly handle sensitive data and how it is stored. Depending on their content, different documents have different shelf lives.
You have a variety of information stored on paper. It may be tax records, human resource files, safety-related documents, and confidential business records. After their usefulness is over, documents with sensitive information should be destroyed.
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Employee Mistakes May Create Liability for Your Company
Workers may leave sensitive documents on their desks or in unlocked drawers or cabinets when they leave for the day. Documents may be lost or stolen because security rules weren’t followed. Papers with sensitive information may be put in trash bins open to those passing by and end up in an open, unlocked dumpster.
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Don’t Assume You Can’t Afford Document Destruction Services
Effective information and document destruction may be more affordable than you think. TITAN Mobile Shredding works with organizations of all sizes, our rates are reasonable, and we can provide services to fit your needs and budget.
Whatever you pay is not a cost. It is an investment to avoid potential legal action, negative online reviews, and bad publicity that can result when someone obtains sensitive information from your business and exploits it for their own gain.
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The Best Policy May Be the Simplest
Policies with exceptions or different rules can lead to confusion and mistakes that make them ineffective. You can adopt a policy of shredding all documents that are no longer needed. Your files with sensitive information are secured when they are not needed. Every other piece of paper goes into a locked bin. These papers and the files that no longer serve their purpose are regularly shredded. You can deliver the material to us, or we can come to you and shred the documents on-site.
TITAN Mobile Shredding Can Prevent Information from Getting Into the Wrong Hands
TITAN Mobile Shredding is the best way to protect yourself, your customers, and your business. Call us at (866) 848-2699 today to learn more.
