Tue, Jun 11, 2019
By: Jim Beran
As a business owner, it’s your job to maintain accurate records and destroy them in accordance with regulations. While it might be tempting to simply buy a shredder and do your shredding in-house, there are some reasons that security experts don’t recommend it.
At Gilmore Services, we offer secure shredding services to our clients. Even if you think you’re doing a good job with document destruction, secure shredding provides an extra layer of protection. It ensures that your valuable paper records can’t be misused or stolen.
Paper Documents Are at Risk
Even though a lot of companies have moved toward electronic records, it’s rare for a business to be truly paperless. It’s still common for healthcare practitioners to keep paper medical records, for example, or for service providers to keep paper files on behalf of their clients.
As recently as 2015, paper document thefts accounted for 1 in every 5 data breaches. That shows us that although electronic breaches are far more common, paper breaches are still a genuine risk. Any business that keeps paper documents should be concerned about a potential breach.
The numbers aren’t getting much better with the passage of time. There were 142 medical data breaches in the second quarter of 2018. Of those, 23 breaches involved paper records. That’s a little less than one in 5 but it illustrates that paper records are still very much at risk. And while they represent a relatively small percentage of all breaches, just 14 of those paper breaches affected 158,711 patients.
These statistics illustrate the importance of securing paper documents. When they’re stolen, paper files can cause just as much damage as an electronic data breach.
How Can Paper Documents Be Compromised?
There are many ways that paper documents can be compromised by improper destruction and disposal. Here are just a few examples:
- Documents waiting to be shredded could be stored in an unsecured area where unauthorized personnel could find and access them.
- Documents that are thrown away could be found and stolen by “dumpster divers” who are on the hunt for personal information.
- Improperly shredded documents could be reassembled by identity thieves.
Even when they’re in your office, paper documents and files may be vulnerable to theft or misappropriation. It’s your job to ensure that doesn’t happen.
How Secure Shredding Can Protect You
Secure shredding offers some significant advantages that make it a superior option for companies in all industries. At Gilmore Services, we offer our clients a choice of NAID certified and Downstream Data protected on-site shredding or off-site shredding.
With on-site shredding, we provide secure disposal bins. Any documents to be destroyed are placed in the bins. We return according to your schedule and destroy your confidential documents on your premises.
With off-site shredding, the process begins with the arrival of secure disposal bins. When you tell us to, we’ll come and pick up the bins in our secure vehicles with GPS tracking. You’ll be able to track our progress.
Secure shredding allows you to:
- Stick to a document destruction schedule
- Store documents to be destroyed in secure bins where nobody can access them
- Watch as your documents are destroyed or track their progress to a secure location
- Receive a certificate confirming the destruction of your documents
The issue with DIY shredding is that it leaves you open to theft or document reconstruction. Even with a top-notch shredder, you can’t get the same level of security that you will with a secure shredding service.
Conclusion
You have a responsibility to your clients and employees. Secure shredding is the best way to ensure that your confidential documents are properly destroyed.
To learn more about Gilmore Services secure shredding options, please click here now.
