subject: Will A Shredding Service Sign A Confidentiality Agreement? [print this page] When you're looking for a company that is going to take care of your courier and shredding services for you (like an Arkansas courier services), there are some things that you need to keep an eye out for. Not all paper shredding companies are going to provide you with the same level of service, and this is a concern certainly. However, there are some things that are even more important than service when it comes to paper shredding, primarily, confidentiality.
What is meant by this is that you must absolutely expect a shredding company to be willing to sign any kind of confidentiality agreement. Many people wonder if a company would be offended if they asked them to do something like this, but this couldn't be further from the truth. These companies are very used to confidentiality agreements as part of their every day way of doing business.
Most of these companies even have their own confidentiality agreements already written up that they will offer to sign with every company they do business with. Alternatively, the terms of such an agreement may already be written into a contract that they sign with the company in question. Even if one or both of those is the case though, you still may want to ask them to sign an additional agreement.
That is the sort of decision which might be left up to those that advise you on legal matters. Whether you need them to sign an additional agreement or not will depend both on how well worded their existing agreements are, and the nature of the documents that you are having them destroy. As with all things of this nature, above all else always seek legal counsel and be sure to take your lawyer's advice on this.
Sometimes, your legal advice may advise a two tiered system of confidentiality agreements. This means that you have the management or owners of the shredding company sign one, as well as the individual employees that are going to handle your documents. Many companies structure their agreements like this.
If any company is unwilling to sign a confidentiality agreement, it should throw up a big red flag for you. This is an immediate sign that they may be an untrustworthy company, because normally, this is such an accepted part of how business is done within this industry. A company that won't sign an agreement may have ulterior and unscrupulous motives for refusing such.
