When it comes to confidential waste handling, you can’t be too careful. With identity theft and leaks of sensitive information on the increase, legislation has been increased to protect both the identity of individuals and information considered as sensitive and confidential. Failure to comply with the many UK and European regulations currently in force regarding the secure disposal of such information can lead to your company paying a hefty fine. With the UK National Fraud Authority reporting in March 2012 that identity fraud alone cost an estimated £1.2 billion lost to the UK economy in the previous year, disposal of confidential information has to be taken seriously.
Large or small – shred it all
Whether you handle large amounts of sensitive or confidential documents on a daily basis, or only need to dispose of such documents occasionally when carrying out an office or departmental cleanout, the disposal of these documents needs to be handled in the correct manner.
Documents that are considered sensitive or confidential usually contain personal information of clients, customers or employees of a company as well as financial information. Legislation requires that these documents are disposed of in such a way that it will be impossible to reconstruct them in order to obtain personal, sensitive or confidential information which could be used for fraudulent or other criminal activities.
Document shredding has proven to be the most cost effective and convenient form of confidential waste handling. However, having your key staff shred confidential documents can be a time consuming affair, especially if you deal with a large amount of such information. It is hardly the most productive use of their time if they are required to stand over a shredding machine to make sure that documents are destroyed securely.
Secure document disposal services
confidential waste handling companies comply with current relevant legislation for the destruction of this type of information and can even tailor make a solution if your requirements are somewhat out of the ordinary.
If your need is for a permanent onsite confidential waste handling service, then you might consider the installation of a number of secure consoles within your company, where all documents to be destroyed are deposited. These are then collected on a regular pre-agreed schedule and the documents are either taken to a secure shredding facility, or in some cases may be shredded onsite, and disposed of according to the necessary regulations. This provides an ideal solution and gives control over each step of the process. Once the documents have been shredded and disposed of, a certificate of destruction is issued as proof of compliance with the necessary legislation.
For companies who have a need to dispose of such documents but only now and then, an on demand service may offer a better solution. The documents to be disposed of are collected from your offices or company site and destroyed there or taken to a shredding facility, and you receive a certificate of destruction for your compliance records.
This type of solution not only keeps your company from falling foul of the ever increasing legislation covering disposal of documents holding personal, sensitive or confidential information, but it also removes the necessity for trusted and key employees to be involved in the process, allowing them to concentrate on their core responsibilities.
Another important aspect, especially for those companies disposing of a large quantity of documents is that the confidential waste handling service company ensures that the shredded documents are sent for recycling and to be used in new paper based products in the future, so you can be sure that the environmental impact of your document destruction is minimal.
Using a confidential waste handling service means you can have confidence in a secure process and custody chain from start to finish. It’s cost effective and can help in protecting your company, your employees and your clients and customers from possible identity theft or leaks of sensitive and possibly damaging corporate information.
Nathan Morgan has been a IT professional for 14 years. His work is currently focused on Linux servers. He has encryption experience including the deployment of True Crypt and similar packages, and detailed knowledge of document scanning solutions to transform off-line archives into accessible digital data.