When most people think of document destruction or shredding confidential papers, they most often think of common things that must be protected when performing these activities: privacy, trade secrets, customer lists. There's more to it than that. There are actually legal requirements that individuals and companies must meet. You or your company can be held liable if personal information is released to unauthorized parties - whether the leak was intentional or inadvertent.
Also hot topics in today's internet age of information is the concern of identity theft. If you or your company maintain personal information - customer data, credit cards, health records, financial records, etc... - if that data is released, it can be argued that you are liable for any damages that result from the leak. This includes electronic leaks but just as importantly - old fashioned paper documents and records. Due to this potential for liability, you should limit your exposure by destroying documents that are no longer useful or the legal retention period has expired. Consider hiring a reputable paper shredding service to handle your destruction needs and ensure that your sensitive documents are properly handled and destroyed throughout the process.
Some recent cases where had these companies implemented a document destruction plan and adhered to it, they would not be in trouble.
12 May 2009 - Walgreens Seeks to Settle Case Over Dumped Documents - In Indiana, an investigative news team discovered personal information in the dumpsters of familiar drugstore companies Walgreens and CVS. CVS settled for $2.25 MILLION - the terms of Walgreens possible settlement have not yet been made public, but you can believe that the cost of the settlement will be much greater than had they adequately destroyed confidential documents.
12 May 2009 - Script For The Next 'Twilight' Movie Found In St. Louis Dumpster - It doesn't have to be medical records or personal data. It could be company trade secrets, or in this case the script for upcoming blockbuster Twilight movies. The fan who found the movie script didn't publish the details or sell them to the tabloids, but imagine the damage to the Twilight franchise that could have resulted from this inadvertent disclosure of information. Had proper paper shredding techniques been employed, this would have never happened!
There are more stories out there happening every day. Don't let you or your business be the next one published by the newspapers. Ensure that you take the proper steps to protect yourself!
Why Outsource Document Destruction?
For many business owners or managers of both large and small companies, they often times ask why outsource document destruction efforts when it can "easily" be done in house with the purchase of a paper shredder. While this is tempting, but what people often lose sight of is the other costs of destroying sensitive documents.
So you buy yourself a top of the line heavy duty paper shredder capable of handling your work load. Let's assume that you size it properly - too small and it will take an hourly employee much longer than it should, too big and you've wasted your money on excess capability that will likely never be used to its fullest potential - it's lost money either way you look at it.
Using your properly sized machine, we can estimate that it'll take approximately 20 minutes to destroy one ream of paper. How many reams of paper does your company go through on a daily basis? Let's go small - one ream a day. Paying an office employee $10 / hour will cost around $60 per month. Let's think about this though... what if you have your skilled employees who make $40 / hour doing it. They may not be standing around destroying documents for 20 minute at a time, but over the course of the week... it adds up - so your cost may have just quadrupled there. Think of the lost productivity standing in front of a shredder.
Think about the cost of a shredder itself... plus the cost of maintenance... plus the cost of disposal. These things all add up over time, and they are recurring costs. It's not a one time investment in a piece of machinery. There is upkeep associated with it.
When making sound business decisions there comes a certain point when the economics of doing it in house versus outsourcing comes into play. When does a professional paper shredding service make sense for you and your business? It may be sooner than you think when you add it all up. Service for less than $150 / month can be found, and discounts for high volume customers can be had. Do your homework before buying your company a paper shredder.
So you buy yourself a top of the line heavy duty paper shredder capable of handling your work load. Let's assume that you size it properly - too small and it will take an hourly employee much longer than it should, too big and you've wasted your money on excess capability that will likely never be used to its fullest potential - it's lost money either way you look at it.
Using your properly sized machine, we can estimate that it'll take approximately 20 minutes to destroy one ream of paper. How many reams of paper does your company go through on a daily basis? Let's go small - one ream a day. Paying an office employee $10 / hour will cost around $60 per month. Let's think about this though... what if you have your skilled employees who make $40 / hour doing it. They may not be standing around destroying documents for 20 minute at a time, but over the course of the week... it adds up - so your cost may have just quadrupled there. Think of the lost productivity standing in front of a shredder.
Think about the cost of a shredder itself... plus the cost of maintenance... plus the cost of disposal. These things all add up over time, and they are recurring costs. It's not a one time investment in a piece of machinery. There is upkeep associated with it.
When making sound business decisions there comes a certain point when the economics of doing it in house versus outsourcing comes into play. When does a professional paper shredding service make sense for you and your business? It may be sooner than you think when you add it all up. Service for less than $150 / month can be found, and discounts for high volume customers can be had. Do your homework before buying your company a paper shredder.
Mobile Document Shredding Services
Before implementing a document destruction plan, it is often important to perform some sort of cost benefit analysis to determine what the best option is for you and your company. As mentioned in my previous article about paper shredding services, there are several different options for you to consider. Today I want to focus on one of those in particular: Mobile Document Shredding Services.
There's a lot of benefit in using a mobile shredding service especially when considering the convenience factor. You are not required to manually transport your sensitive documents to a destruction facility which is a definite plus. This lifts the burden of establishing a proper transport mechanism for your destruction plan. When your sensitive documents are being transported, they are most vulnerable to any type of malicious attempts to gain access to them. It is also the most probable time that accidental exposure could occur in the event of a car accident or other similar incident. This is something you don't have to worry about when enlisting the services of a mobile paper shredding company because your documents are shredded on site. Instead of transporting sensitive documents the driver will be transporting a fine paper powder.
Another benefit of a mobile shredding service is the immediate destruction of documents in your presence. There is no additional risk of handing off documents to a third party and having it transported to a distant location outside of your sphere of influence. Instead have one of your employees witness the entire destruction process. While most paper shredding companies are very professional in the way they handle their responsibilities, depending on the sensitivity of the documents you need destroyed, it doesn't hurt to personally witness the destruction.
An additional benefit of a mobile destruction service is that they will usually provide a certificate of destruction immediately after the documents are destroyed. This would simplify your accounting purposes by allowing you to immediately file and write off all the documents that were destroyed, on the spot... There's no need to track - these were destroyed, but I don't have the legal proof required to certify their destruction... wait, were these documents destroyed? If you don't track it, there could be confusion at your company which could have been prevented simply by having the documents destroyed on site and obtaining that certificate of destruction immediately.
One other consideration when looking for a mobile shredding service is how the documents are handled. Often times you are able to witness the destruction, but many services also provide the option of hands free destruction. That is, you store sensitive documents in a locked storage bin. The document destruction professional never has to handle the documents as the destruction process is handled automatically by machinery. That is the locked bins are placed into a loading device and the papers are extracted from the bin and destroyed without the destruction company ever physically handling the papers.
These are a few of the benefits of choosing a mobile document destruction service vice some of the more traditional services.
There's a lot of benefit in using a mobile shredding service especially when considering the convenience factor. You are not required to manually transport your sensitive documents to a destruction facility which is a definite plus. This lifts the burden of establishing a proper transport mechanism for your destruction plan. When your sensitive documents are being transported, they are most vulnerable to any type of malicious attempts to gain access to them. It is also the most probable time that accidental exposure could occur in the event of a car accident or other similar incident. This is something you don't have to worry about when enlisting the services of a mobile paper shredding company because your documents are shredded on site. Instead of transporting sensitive documents the driver will be transporting a fine paper powder.
Another benefit of a mobile shredding service is the immediate destruction of documents in your presence. There is no additional risk of handing off documents to a third party and having it transported to a distant location outside of your sphere of influence. Instead have one of your employees witness the entire destruction process. While most paper shredding companies are very professional in the way they handle their responsibilities, depending on the sensitivity of the documents you need destroyed, it doesn't hurt to personally witness the destruction.
An additional benefit of a mobile destruction service is that they will usually provide a certificate of destruction immediately after the documents are destroyed. This would simplify your accounting purposes by allowing you to immediately file and write off all the documents that were destroyed, on the spot... There's no need to track - these were destroyed, but I don't have the legal proof required to certify their destruction... wait, were these documents destroyed? If you don't track it, there could be confusion at your company which could have been prevented simply by having the documents destroyed on site and obtaining that certificate of destruction immediately.
One other consideration when looking for a mobile shredding service is how the documents are handled. Often times you are able to witness the destruction, but many services also provide the option of hands free destruction. That is, you store sensitive documents in a locked storage bin. The document destruction professional never has to handle the documents as the destruction process is handled automatically by machinery. That is the locked bins are placed into a loading device and the papers are extracted from the bin and destroyed without the destruction company ever physically handling the papers.
These are a few of the benefits of choosing a mobile document destruction service vice some of the more traditional services.
Paper Shredding Services
When establishing your document destruction plan, there are several options that you have to consider to ensure the service you get fits well within your business model. If you're a mom and pop hardware store, your requirements are going to be different than that of a financial institution. You still have to be concerned with best privacy practices, but you probably aren't dealing with social security numbers, bank account information, and other sensitive data. So what paper shredding services are generally available?
Most paper shredding companies offer some sort of onsite shredding service - that is, they will come to you. What this entails is the company will send a truck that has all of the equipment necessary to do the shredding at your facility. This enables you as the designee responsible for safe destruction of all sensitive documents to witness the shredding operation as well as ensure the integrity of the document handling. Some paper shredding companies even offer a video recording service to further ensure that the integrity of the destruction process was upheld.
Upon completion of the document destruction, the specialist will provide you a certificate of destruction that certifies the date and time the documents were destroyed. This certificate of destruction is important for you to meet your legal obligations. Make sure not to hire a shredding company that does not offer a certificate of destruction as their process may or may not be legitimate. It's important that while dealing with sensitive documents scheduled for destruction, you have the requisite legal proof that they were effectively destroyed.
For customers that have regular shredding needs, you can schedule the paper shredding service to show up on a regulary basis based on your needs. For high volume customers this can be as frequently as every day, while others customers may require a less frequenty schedule... maybe weekly or monthly. This is up to you.
Another option that you have for a paper shredding service is offsite destruction. This is an option often chosen by small businesses who simply do not have the security requirements that would mandate on site destruction. What this entails is a truck still shows up at a scheduled time to pick up locked bins with the sensitive documents that need to be destroyed. They do not perform the shredding process on site, however, they transport the documents back to their primary paper shredding facility. As with the on site option, you should be provided with a certificate of destruction to legally verify that the documents have actually been destroyed.
Finally, for those customers that simply do not have the requisite volume to warrant a regularly scheduled pick up, many companies offer a drop off option directly to their shredding facility. This is the option most frequently chosen by residential customers or small business as it is the most cost effective, yet it still provides the security one would expect from a professional document destruction company. On an ad hoc basis, you can simply drop off your documents for destruction and you will still get a certificate of destruction that states the date and time the documents were destroyed.
Choosing the service option that is best for your business model does not have to reside squarely on your shoulder. Speak with your local paper shredding companies and work with them to establish the best program for your business. Just make sure you clearly understand your options so that it adequately satisfies your requirements and provides you the peace of mind knowing that your sensitive documents have been securely destroyed.
Most paper shredding companies offer some sort of onsite shredding service - that is, they will come to you. What this entails is the company will send a truck that has all of the equipment necessary to do the shredding at your facility. This enables you as the designee responsible for safe destruction of all sensitive documents to witness the shredding operation as well as ensure the integrity of the document handling. Some paper shredding companies even offer a video recording service to further ensure that the integrity of the destruction process was upheld.
Upon completion of the document destruction, the specialist will provide you a certificate of destruction that certifies the date and time the documents were destroyed. This certificate of destruction is important for you to meet your legal obligations. Make sure not to hire a shredding company that does not offer a certificate of destruction as their process may or may not be legitimate. It's important that while dealing with sensitive documents scheduled for destruction, you have the requisite legal proof that they were effectively destroyed.
For customers that have regular shredding needs, you can schedule the paper shredding service to show up on a regulary basis based on your needs. For high volume customers this can be as frequently as every day, while others customers may require a less frequenty schedule... maybe weekly or monthly. This is up to you.
Another option that you have for a paper shredding service is offsite destruction. This is an option often chosen by small businesses who simply do not have the security requirements that would mandate on site destruction. What this entails is a truck still shows up at a scheduled time to pick up locked bins with the sensitive documents that need to be destroyed. They do not perform the shredding process on site, however, they transport the documents back to their primary paper shredding facility. As with the on site option, you should be provided with a certificate of destruction to legally verify that the documents have actually been destroyed.
Finally, for those customers that simply do not have the requisite volume to warrant a regularly scheduled pick up, many companies offer a drop off option directly to their shredding facility. This is the option most frequently chosen by residential customers or small business as it is the most cost effective, yet it still provides the security one would expect from a professional document destruction company. On an ad hoc basis, you can simply drop off your documents for destruction and you will still get a certificate of destruction that states the date and time the documents were destroyed.
Choosing the service option that is best for your business model does not have to reside squarely on your shoulder. Speak with your local paper shredding companies and work with them to establish the best program for your business. Just make sure you clearly understand your options so that it adequately satisfies your requirements and provides you the peace of mind knowing that your sensitive documents have been securely destroyed.
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We recognize that maintaining the privacy of your personal data is important. In order to provide transparency on what information we collect, and how it is used, we have provided this general policy for you to read. This is a list of the types of information we collect when you use visit this site, and the steps we have taken to safeguard your information. We NEVER sell your information to third parties. We hate SPAM as much as you do.
Log Files
As with most websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The log files includes information such as your IP address, your internet service provider, the browser you used to visit our site, the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site. This information is used in aggregate form to provide a better service to our readers.
Cookies
We use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site.
We also use third party advertisements to support our site. Some advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP, the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used to improve your surfing experience and to provide content that may be beneficial to you.
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