subject: Top Ten Reasons For Shredding [print this page] There are countless reasons that companies shred sensitve documents including legal reasons, client retention and competitive secrecy.
1. The most important reason to shred your documents is because in many cases the laws state that documents which contain private information have to be destroyed. Privacy laws state that confidential shredding services should be used to destroy all documents with information protected by those privacy statutes.
2. You can help your firm to gain and retain clients by being able to show them your document destruction policy in writing which should include the use of a professional document destruction firm.
3. Every company has some development or research data that they want to keep from the competition in order to release a product with the element of surprise. Shredding helps keep the competition from finding out what you're up to before they're supposed to.
4. Storage costs can represent a very large expenditure for something that doesn't actually do anything except hold documents that your company has no need for anymore. Shredding prevents the spending of needless dollars on storage.
5. Every company has things that are meant to be for internal eyes only, including banking details and credit card information that may be listed on many account and billing statements that you regularly file instead of shredding. Shredding makes sure that they stay private.
6. Identity theft is something that any individual or any company can be subject too. Shredding is one of the first steps in a comprehensive identity theft protection protocol that should be implemented by your company.
7. You don't ever want a competitor to be aware of the data contained in any of your financial statements, as this could in many cases give them a crucial advantage. You can protect against corporate espionage of this type by destroying all of your documents.
8. If you work in the medical industry, HIPPA requires that you have a written document destruction policy that will make sure that all paperwork which contains the private information of your patients is destroyed. Adhere to the law by destroying paperwork regularly.
9. If you have a written destruction policy you can use it in the terms of any non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements that your customers might request that you sign to help reassure them that all steps are being protected to guard their information.
10. If you have done any background or credit checks on your employees then you are legally compelled to destroy the documents which contain any reference to their information.
