The news is all too common: an employee, whether it’s a subordinate or manager, blissfully unaware, tosses boxes of sensitive documentation to the corner of an office or in an unsecured storage facility, without a care in the world who may have access to it. If you read real-life stories, they get even worse. Recent stories of private information breaches include everyone from fast food employees to firefighters.
Police and fire unions in Washington D.C. are looking for answers, asking the city’s inspector general how personnel files of fire and police department employees could end up in a publicly accessible trash bin. In a strange bit of irony, the firefighters were called on to extinguish a fire that was burning those documents, which included their medical records and Social Security numbers.
Besides being personal information, there is the potential some of it could have been used as evidence in a court of law.
“This is the type of material that is commonly subpoenaed in court cases and they are burning it in dumpsters,” said Kristopher Baumann, the Fraternal Order of Police Chairman.
In Omaha, Nebraska, an ex-Dairy Queen employee found her employee records in a dumpster, and claims the restaurant was planning on dumping payroll documents as well. New ownership was putting out their own set of fires, metaphorical speaking, saying the mistake was being taken “very seriously.”
Benefits of a Secure Document Shredding Company
Whether your business has sensitive information stored electronically or in physical form, it must be destroyed in a secure manner. There are many benefits for hiring a quality document shredding company. Here are some of the more important reasons to:
Company security. The name of the game is securing sensitive information, and if it happens to be related to your business, you certainly don’t want to risk exposing yourself to anything from fraud to giving up proprietary information.
Minimize legal vulnerability. Besides thinking about your company’s security, it’s vital to make sure your employees are protected as well. The “bonus” to not securing private employee information is that they may decide to take you to court.
It’s an educational experience. As the aforementioned examples show, it is fairly common for businesses and organizations of all shapes and sizes to not fully understand the implications of mishandling private documents. At Accu NW, our staff is prepared with high levels of security training and certifications. We have been awarded the Privacy Plus certification from the Professional Records & Information Services Management (PRISM) association. In order to achieve this certification we had to show that we have implemented a sophisticated level of safeguards that protect our clients’ information.
What this means to you is, besides being confident that we have your best interests in mind, is that our consulting services will include educating you on what your legal responsibilities are in regards to document security and disposal. You will also come away with a better understanding of how having your documents disposed of or stored by us will benefit your company in the long run.
Tags: document shredding
