Secure document destruction is the most important step that companies have to take care of in modern days to safeguard themselves from personal information theft that is the problem of most of the business now a days. Every business holds personal information about all of its clients and operations alike. And if you do not have a proper document shredding policy, you may face the risk of compromised company files, employee records and customer information. To ensure that your confidential information stays private, you need to create a company-wide shredding policy.
Go through this guide of shredding as your one-stop-shop to determine which document destruction best practices you need to apply to your business as you cultivate your document security plan:
1. Shred Everything and Shred Often
Of all the best practices to keep in mind when it comes to document destruction, this is the most crucial step. A “shred-all” policy will help you avoid the risk of bad judgment on what needs to be shredded and stop private papers from piling up around the office.
This is how it has to be done.
- You must train your whole staff in secure document destruction processes and best practices.
- You should conduct regular information security assessments to assess potential risks and weaknesses around your office.
- You must update your document security plan on an as-needed basis.
- Implementing these policies is a company-wide commitment to shredding everything on a regular basis to battle human error and structure your organization.
2. Shred Before You Recycle
If your way of recycling papers and documents is just to pick up all the extra papers and put them directly into a trash can then you might be at risk, a big risk I must say. Picking up all those extra sheets and throwing them away would increase a lot of chances of document theft as all your personal information is in there and anyone can use it against you.
If you really want to be an eco-friendly person while following document destruction best methods, it is the high time to think about outsourcing your document shredding needs to a trustworthy document shredding company that too values security and organic process.
Associating with a document destruction business that also includes recycling in their customer services will forbid you from worrying about what might happen to your private papers once they are recycled.
3. Shred with A Professional
With the proper application of all these rules, you will be well on your way towards the ultimate goal of total security for your business, customer, and employee information. While you may be convinced to cut costs and engage in these measures in-house, here are a few key points to keep in mind:
Outsourcing document destruction to a professional shredding business is the best way to make sure that your workers are free to concentrate on what is crucial, such as your business and serving customers.
It does not matter how much training your staff has, there is no possibility for human error. Most companies do not have the capability containing information security that is needed to make sure documents are properly demolished.
5 STEPS IN A SECURE DOCUMENT DESTRUCTION PROCESS
If it is the pattern around your company to throw documents that are no longer in use into the trash bin and run all of the bin’s content through the shredder when it gets full, then you might be at risk.
First of all, your best hope that you are not in infringement of any obligation your company has to safeguard the privacy of its employees, consumers, dealers, and everyone else. Secondly, you will be a lucky person if you do not suffer some sort of critical data loss. It is time to start pondering of leaving documents in the recycling bin for shredding in the same way you would think of leaving a workstation on and not password protected when it is no longer in use. The first step in protecting the data on your documents is to develop and institute a document destruction process for your company.
Here are some of the steps you will need to take to do so.
CREATE A DESTRUCTION SCHEDULE
If you are someone who usually gets out of the board and destroys all of your extra documents at once and does not eagerly see if you really do not dig into the papers and see what is to be destroyed and whatnot, then you might be at big risk. You need to make sure as many people as possible comprehend what docs have to be kept for how long.
TRAIN YOUR TEAM
Recording a list of instructions above the photocopier just will not do the job right for you. Current document destruction training for employees, from the moment you hire them, is very important to reduce data violations.
PROPER SHREDDING
No doubt that the shredder that is there at your side table destroys paper properly, but does it really destroy the data? I don’t think so. You would always need a proper shredding process or a proper document shredding company to associate with that can shred documents to the point where the data on the document is certifiably destroyed.
SECURE TRANSPORTATION
If your documents are destroyed off-site, they should be securely shipped from your office to the destruction site.
RECYCLE
Finally, once the data is destroyed. The paper is a useful source that will help decrease our dependence on harvesting trees.