Companies that collect, use and store confidential information from their customers are required to keep them safe. Depending on the company’s policy and local regulations, a company may also be required to maintain these records for a certain amount of time before destroying them. Paper destruction is a serious business, and failure to treat this task with the utmost care can pose a great liability to your company.
Tempting as it might be, you cannot simply throw papers that contain confidential information in the trash. Too many things can go wrong you don’t take steps to protect customer privacy.
For one thing, medical information is protected by HIPAA regulations, to keep patient’s personal data private. If criminals get a hold of documents that contain a customer’s personally identifying information, they can engage in identity theft, such as hacking into someone’s bank account and stealing all the funds.
Identify thieves also use stolen data to apply for credit cards in the victim’s name and have them sent to the thief’s address, with the victim unaware of what is happening until significant time has passed. Identity thieves may also sell customer information for the purpose of creating bogus Social Security cards, driver’s licenses and other vital documents.
At DocuVault, we are professionals with vast experience in the document shredding industry. We manage confidential documents on a regular basis for clients who need to protect their customers’ private information. You can arrange for us to come out to your facility and destroy documents then and there, or we can take them away and destroy them on our premises. We will provide you with a Certificate of Destruction for your records.
Given all the potential problems that can arise through identity theft or the inadvertent release of someone’s private medical information, you will want to leave your paper destruction to the professionals. We use specialized shredding equipment and our staff members are well trained in handling documents that are protected by HIPAA. It’s prudent to rely on us to handle the entirety of your document shredding needs, rather than trying to train your own employees how to do this delicate task efficiently and safely.
