Gilmore Blog https://www.gilmoreservices.com/blog/author/jim-beran

If your company collects and stores medical records, then you know that it’s your legal responsibility to secure those records to protect your patients’ privacy. Likewise, medical record destruction is something that’s mandated by HIPAA.

Tis the season for school shopping, lunch box notes, bus rides, and - identity theft?! Unfortunately, the back-to-school season is a fruitful time for identity theft as vaccination records, free and reduced lunch applications, birth certificates, and other secure and confidential documents change hands, both physically and electronically. Whether you're scanning copies of vital records to your computer and then emailing them to the school or making a copy and sending it with your little one on the first day, you could be at risk of a breach. 

By their very nature, law firms generate a tremendous amount of records. Most, if not all of those records, whether on paper or in digital form, contain sensitive information that must be cared for properly to protect the firm and the privacy its clients.

Juggling ever-changing records management practices can be a challenge, especially when it comes to the digital processes that we have become comfortable with.

While many records managers monitor industry trends, it's important to fully understand each aspect of records management on a detailed level, including the proper methods for destroying hard drives.

The number of documents that legal and financial professionals ultimately accumulate can be considerable. Organizing, filing, and securing these documents can become a full-time job in and of itself, which explains why this task is so often pushed aside in favor of more pressing matters. If you’re interested in better storage, you should know that the benefits of taking control of all the chaos will be immeasurable. Gilmore specializes in this secure document storage because we know just how much our clients rely on the additional protection. 

Security is important both at home and in the office. It’s important to safely dispose of unwanted papers. Otherwise, your paperwork could fall into the hands of criminals intent on stealing your identity or the private information of your customers.

One of the decisions you'll make as you choose a shredding provider is whether shredding will be performed on-site or off-site.

It’s tax season, which means that you are getting tax forms in the mail, via email and downloading them from various employers, stock trading accounts, banks, and other accounts. You may be doing your taxes online. You should ensure that your data stays safe as it travels through cyberspace. All sites should be secure – they will have an “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP.” You should also use encryption for your email.

A client's financial data is what makes an accounting firm go 'round. Thus, they should have a great records management system. Missing records, poor documentation, and regulatory write-ups can be a nightmare. One missing spreadsheet could mean an expensive mistake for the client and the accounting firm. Nintex found that 49 percent of respondents to a study said that locating documents was a problem in their organizations. Some accounting firms keep boxes and boxes of records – records they don't really need to keep. Creating a records retention schedule helps keep your clients' records organized. It also significantly reduces the risk of identity thieves hitting the jackpot if they break into your business.

When you need shredding services, one of the areas you want to consider is what type of shredding equipment is being used. Some of it works better than others, and you don't want any sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. Standard paper shredders work for most things, but you may want to consider whether a strip-cut shredder or cross-cut shredder is the best choice for your needs.

Document destruction is very important to make sure that people aren't getting access to sensitive information. A lot of people just toss things into the trash and don't worry about what happens to them afterward. While that's generally fine for some items, there are plenty of other pieces of paper that could have important details on them. You don't want just anyone to get their hands on any of that. Proper document destruction is the way to reduce that risk and have more peace of mind.

Sending kids back to school can be worrisome, but one of the most commonly overlooked risks is the lack of security when it comes to their personal documents and vital records. When living in common spaces, sharing electronic devices, discarding mail in the trash, and attending class away from the dorm and their belongings, students are at risk of identity theft, credit card fraud, and more. 

If you're considering moving in Northwest Florida you need to make sure you're working with the right company. Fortunately you can get a good idea of what you're looking for by knowing what a quality moving company should provide. You don't want to get stuck moving along Gulf Coast areas with a company that doesn't have your best interests in mind. 

When disaster strikes you need to know that your business operations will continue to run smoothly and your information systems won’t be completely uprooted. A document disaster recovery plan will help to minimize disruption to the normal operations of your business while preventing or limiting the extent of damage.

Another year of tax season is here and you may be wondering what to with old tax returns. The truth is, it depends. There are different timelines assigned to certain documents that may require you to keep your tax returns and supporting information longer than normal recommendations. Once you have spoken to someone with authority who can provide sound recommendations, that’s when you move forward.

Identity theft is a draw for criminals, one that allows them to wreak havoc on people’s lives while being shrouded in secrecy. When tax season pops up, the stakes get even higher. All the information, from your Social Security number to your transcript, is often relatively easy to both intercept and capitalize on. The best thing for anyone to do right now is to be aware of how criminals function and who they target — because it’s not always the wealthiest people. In fact, it’s more likely to be an everyday person who just got a little careless about security. 

Using a company for RIM services significantly decreases the risk of losing important information. You not only know where all of your business records are but they are also kept safe from prying eyes. And, when combined with a retention schedule, your business records won't ever take over digital or physical storage.

Dealing with inclement weather any time of year can be hectic, but knowing how to protect paper from weather conditions that can affect your operations is critical. Businesses that use document storage methods to keep paper records intact face an uphill battle, especially because certain conditions can damage those documents. Too much moisture, too much heat, and water damage are all factors to consider.

Most Americans have paper waste at home that would pose a risk if disposed of in the garbage can, like bank statements, tax returns that are beyond their retention period, loan applications, and more. Any document that contains your date of birth, social security number, passwords, signatures, bank account number, or credit card number can be used by criminals to steal your identity and cause you harm. Additionally, documents that contain your address, phone number, email address, family history (i.e. mother's maiden name, grandparents' names, etc.), children's names or dates of birth, and more can be used to guess passwords and initiate unwanted contact. Shredding documents that contain confidential information is key.

As the end of another year approaches, now is a good time to evaluate your document destruction policy and consider your end-of-year shredding strategy. While it's easy to get a little relaxed about documents that have reached the end of life, leaving them in storage beyond their shred date poses risk to your home and your identity security. Year-end purging can help free up space in your home, remove fire hazards, protect your personal information, and prevent threats of identity theft or fraud. While year-end document shredding can seem overwhelming, we're here to help.

In Florida, winter can be very wet. Unlike other areas where it’s very cold, there are certain parts of the state that have rain no matter what time of year. It’s always a good idea to be prepared for anything when living in Florida, and businesses should have a good scanning and storing system in place to accommodate any unforeseen flooding that can wreak havoc on their business, documents, and systems. Finding a good partner that understands the logistics of Florida’s ever-changing inclement weather to safely carry out a document management plan is key.

It’s the time of year when it’s time to review and reflect on what’s occurred throughout the year. It’s also a time where purging should be at an all-time high. Document shredding should be on schedule for the final weeks of the year, in addition to document scanning for documents and data that can’t be disposed of. Knowing which records to retain and which ones can be destroyed can make or break an organization that deals with sensitive data. An effective plan must be in place and carried out on a consistent basis.

While people have worked remotely for a long time, the concept was not popular with workplaces until the Covid-19 pandemic forced businesses deemed non-essential to close down or find alternative ways to keep running. Luckily for many offices, they are mostly digital, so remote employees could keep the business going.

You can increase productivity and security in your office by using a document scanning service. Whether the files are active or in retention, scanning them into a secure cloud server allows you to access them when needed and keeps them secure from prying eyes. If you are not ready to move to a 100 percent digital office, you can not only scan the documents, which makes it easier to find them and secure them, but you can take advantage of our secure document storage.

Data breaches can happen to anyone, regardless of the size of the company. A breach, whether of physical or digital documents, can cost you a lot of money. You could be fined, and the person whose identity was stolen could sue you. You can take steps to minimize the chances of a data breach. Combining document destruction, document scanning, records storage, cloud storage and implementing a strong security system for your computers are all things you can do to minimize a data breach.

While aftereffects from Covid-19 aren’t over, many companies require their employees to return to office areas. What does that mean? It means that those employees who were working from home need document shredding solutions to ensure no company data or information is compromised. In addition, the company must have storage and other solutions ready to ensure a smooth return.

With identity theft more prevalent than ever and more and more companies going fully digital, the risk of customer data getting into the wrong hands is even higher. Most companies have good security, but they don't think about letting data on old hard drives getting into criminals' hands. 

Although many offices have resorted to going full-paperless, there are still many businesses that have not taken the time to assess their document storage protocols. Having a professional document storage company you can tap into to assist in protecting sensitive data is key. Why is document storage so important?

People are often at one end of the spectrum or another – they either keep tax records forever or throw them away as soon as they do their taxes. If you're in the former category, it's time to go through all of those old records and shred those you don't need to keep. If you're in the latter category, you need to keep your tax record for up to seven years.

A hard drive is a particularly valuable item to a criminal. Whether it starts as an idle curiosity or a full-fledged identity theft scheme, hard drives contain much information that people would prefer to keep private. If you own a business, it's up to you to keep your customers' information from falling into the wrong hands. The ripple effects of just one identity breach can branch into areas of people's lives that they may not have even realized were possible. Merely wiping a hard drive can't always do the job, and this is a common fallacy that can land people in hot water. Real hard drive destruction takes the whole process a step further, so you're assured that all the data stored on that drive is gone forever.