Secure shredding: why shredding is important

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As an organization, you need to protect your critical information. Secure Shredding is an ideal solution for organizations that need ongoing, verified destruction of sensitive paper documents.

August 31, 20186 mins
Secure Shredding Why shredding is important to your organization -man doing shreddign | Iron Mountain

Why shredding is important for your business

As an organization, you need to protect your critical information. Secure Shredding is an ideal solution for organizations that need ongoing, verified destruction of sensitive paper documents. Plus, it’s secure, convenient and environmentally-friendly.

Does your business model include a sound strategy for managing and protecting your critical information? If your company lacks a coordinated information management strategy, you may encounter:

  • Space invaders
    You risk crowding your office with file cabinets instead of space for your employees or important business tasks.
  • Dangerous inefficiencies
    Don’t chase new business without on-demand access to required information.
  • Wasted business intelligence
    Records are crucial to your firm’s collective brain, but useless if you can’t find them.

What are the benefits of handling your information properly?

  • Preserving your customer relationships
  • Compliance with industry regulations
  • A strong defense against legal challenges

Why shredding is important to you

Paper shredding is an important part of protecting your family, just as much as locking the front door at night. To protect your credit, your privacy, and your customers, homeowners and home-offices need to shred their important documents. Don’t forget; it’s required by law.

Why shred?

Prevent identity theft or data breach

There’s no law preventing people from going through your trash. Your everyday functions around the house can require large amounts of information that could be useful if a thief were after your identity or information. Shredding protects you from identity theft, the nation’s fastest growing crime.

Free up space

Sensitive information should never be kept for longer than is necessary. People often shred because they no longer have room to store all of the paper that they have accumulated over many years. Shredding lets you create new space in your home or office, eliminating the hazards associated with overburdened file cabinets and boxes.

Recycle – save the earth

Recycling paper just makes sense – and all you have to do is watch your documents get dropped into a secure container. Shredding allows you to turn unnecessary, excess paper into new products, and promote a more sustainable planet

What to shred?

Anything that has a signature, account number, social security number, or medical or legal information should be shredded.

Examples include:

  • Address labels from junk mail and magazines
  • receipts, bank statements
  • Birth certificate copies
  • Canceled and voided checks
  • Credit and charge card bills, carbon copies, summaries and receipts
  • Credit reports and histories
  • Documents containing maiden name (used by credit card companies for security reasons)
  • Documents containing name, address, phone or e-mail address
  • Documents relating to investments
  • Documents containing passwords or PIN numbers
  • Driver’s licenses or items with a driver’s license number
  • Employment records
  • Employee pay stubs
  • Expired passports and visas
  • Unlaminated identification cards (college IDs, state IDs, employee ID badges, military IDs)
  • Legal documents
  • Investment, stock and property transactions
  • Items with a signature (leases, contracts, letters)
  • Luggage tags
  • Medical and dental records
  • Papers with a Social Security number
  • Pre-approved credit card applications
  • Receipts with checking account numbers
  • Report cards
  • Resumés or curriculum vitae
  • Tax forms
  • Transcripts
  • Travel itineraries
  • Used airline tickets
  • Utility bills (telephone, gas, electric, water, cable TV, Internet)

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