subject: Confidentiality Agreements With Shredding Companies [print this page] When you work in an industry that requires document shredding, there is a very flow of documents which need to be destroyed. Paper Shredding companies are usually hired by firms that require document destruction to come by on a regular basis and shred all the accumulated papers from that period.
When you're trying to select a company to destroy your documents, there are some things that you're going to want to look for. One of these is going to be a company that is cost effective. You should look for a company with the equipment to shred high volumes of paper at a fast rate. Possibly the most important thing that you're going to look for though, is a company that can shred all of your documents with a strong confidentiality agreement in place.
Without a confidentiality agreement, you are leaving your company open to various kinds of wrong doing. While most shredding companies are surely honest and do their best to protect client information, it never hurts to have firm, legal confirmation in place. The level of confidentiality that you should require them to sign should depend on how sensitive the information is that is contained in your documents.
Many shredding companies will automatically have confidentiality clauses built into their service contracts. However, for many companies, this will not be quite enough confidentiality. In these cases, you should have your legal consultants draw up a confidentiality agreement that your shredding company should be required to sign before you allow them to take possession of any of your documents.
Once you have your confidentiality agreement created, you're going to need two slight variations on it created. The first will be the one that you are going to have handled by the supervisors, owners, or managers that are in charge at the shredding company that you are dealing with. You will also need a variation to be signed by the employees that are actually coming to your location and handling your documents.
In any business where confidentiality is important, it is common practice to have both an overarching agreement, and individual agreements signed by every person that will have access to the protected information. It doesn't take much to amend the primary agreement to create one that will be binding on every employee that will handle your information. Take care to make sure that if there are any staff changes at the shredding company that the new employees also sign the papers.
