COVID-19 caused a lot of changes in offices and at home. Now that things are starting to get back to the new normal, having a plan in place for your return to the office should be a high priority. Decluttering all the paperwork from the past year, and getting ready to re-implement new data security protocols can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be.
Paper makes a lot of clutter – but everyone saves documents for many reasons, whether they are financial records, medical records or even monthly bills. Offices have even more clutter filling up filing cabinets. If you are a business, you need to clear out your files more often, but homeowners should go through their files at least once every six months to dispose of documents that you no longer need to keep.
Whether you are a business or an individual, identity protection is a major concern, especially now that most people have more than one device. However, though you might get many of your confidential documents via the internet, you still have plenty of paper documents. Virus protection, malware fighters, good firewalls, credit monitoring and other programs help to protect your online life. But what protects those physical documents that you have? The best way to keep people from stealing your identity by getting your paper documents is document destruction. This doesn’t mean just throwing them away or shredding them into strips. Thieves can put the strips back together. Instead, have your documents destroyed professionally by Carolina Shred’s cross-cut shredders.
Organizations of every size and in every industry benefit from specialty document shredding services. Secure and timely shredding can help protect your organization’s proprietary information as well as the confidential information of your employees and clients, like their account numbers, addresses, and phone numbers. At the same time, failure to comply with retention guidelines – that is, shredding documents before it's time to shred them - can put your organization at risk.
When it’s time to upgrade your computer, or you’re forced to upgrade because of outdated technology, you will probably move all of the data on the current hard drive to the new hard drive. However, that doesn’t mean the data is gone, even if you erase it after you’ve transferred it. Any criminal could get the hard drive and steal the data off of it. Even if you “wipe” the drive, a hacker could recover some or all of your sensitive data. To adequately protect your private data, and that of your clients if you are upgrading a business computer, contact Carolina Shred about our hard drive destruction services.
Have you ever wondered whether your shredded documents are being compromised? As a business, protecting the sensitive information of your customers and your proprietary information is key. Having an onsite shredding solution can help alleviate any questions and provide peace of mind. Mobile shredding companies come to you. The company can leave a lock box to house the documents that need to be shredded, and then on shredding day, set up outside so you can have an employee monitor and confirm the documents have been shredded and disposed. How does this work? Mobile shredding trucks are outfitted with the latest technology to keep your records and sensitive documents confidential. Most trucks are locked while the documents are being shredded, but there is a screen on the outside where the employee can see what is happening in real time. From paper documents to hard drives and electronics, a professional firm handles it all.
Any firm, whether medical, law, accounting or other industry that deals with client records, should use shredding services. These types of firms must keep client records for a specific amount of time, after which, if the client doesn’t want his or her file, the file may be disposed of. However, you can’t just dump the file in the landfill.
If confidential business information gets into the wrong hands, a business could fail. Or, it could suffer at the hands of criminals. Keeping business, employee and management information under lock and key and only available to those who need to know the information is just one of the ways to prevent your data from falling into the wrong hands. Learn how to keep these 5 examples of confidential information in the office away from the wrong people.
Law firms must keep client documents for a set number of years depending on the type of file. Some documents, such as wills, trusts and other estate planning documents should be kept for at least the lifetime of the client. However, if all files were kept forever, it would become a financial burden because of the space those files take. After the requisite number of years have passed, those files may be destroyed after notifying the client.
Law firms are notorious for accumulating box after box of sensitive case files and other confidential information. Attorneys are held to high standards when it comes to protecting client information.
Files must be kept for a certain period of time after the case closes, and some files may not be destroyed. RPC 209 requires that attorneys keep documents for a minimum of six years after a case closes before document shredding can occur.
However, items such as estate documents, real estate documents and some financial documents should be kept forever. An attorney may destroy a file prior to the six-year minimum, but he or she must have permission from the client. Since files are the client’s property, the attorney also has the option of giving the file to the client.
Mobile shredding trucks come out to your home or business to shred sensitive documents. You could either set up a schedule for us to come out or have us purge documents. If you are a business that has a lot of confidential information to discard, we provide locked boxes for you to deposit your documents into. As the boxes are filled, we come out and shred the contents. You might have us on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly schedule. If you are purging, you might be a resident or a business that has documents that were saved for a recommended time that you need to get rid of.
No business, regardless of size, is immune to cybercriminals. Even well-known companies such as Home Depot, Target and TJ Maxx have been targeted by hackers. In today's technological environment, you have to stay on top of all types of threats to data security and integrity, right from your hardware through your employees. Never assume that your business is too small for cybercriminals to target.
The risks and threats of company data being purposely stolen or inadvertently “shared” are high unless you have excellent security measures in place. Some of the challenges businesses have in securing data may easily be overcome with a good security plan put in place, including locked boxes for documents that need to be shredded.
Everyone who works for a living expects to be safe at work. In fact, the OSHA General Duty Clause 29 U.S.C. §654, 5(a)1 states, “Employers are required to provide their employees with a place of employment that “is free from recognizable hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious harm to employees.”” Additionally, employees expect their personal information to be kept safe. Workplaces have sensitive information including social security numbers, birth dates and addresses.
Information is power. However, that information can damage your company’s privacy and even the business itself. It can also lead to security breaches and identity theft. And when it comes to document destruction, there are federal and state laws on how to properly dispose of data. The risks that documents fall under include:
