Guide to Document Shredding
Shredding confidential waste, which is essentially any documents that contain sensitive information, is a must for many businesses and organisations in order to help prevent data or security breaches. While the future is likely to see more and more documents managed digitally, there is still an important role for shredding in many settings.
Some documents and paperwork must be securely stored for a certain amount of time in order to be compliant with certain regulations, such as financial and accounting records, which need to be kept for at least six years, and even longer in some cases. There are industries that require records to be kept for even longer, which can be a real challenge for businesses and other organisations.
Another big problem for many companies is what to do with the paperwork and documents once they are no longer required. It’s vitally important that it is destroyed in a secure way and many businesses also want to ensure that this paper waste is able to be recycled, so it doesn’t have a significant negative impact on the environment. Failure to correctly dispose of this kind of paperwork, if it leads to a data breach, could mean fines and even prosecution.
Common types of documents that should be shredded when no longer required
- HR and payroll documents – such as those containing employee personal details, CVs, salary information or bank details
- Supplier records and purchase orders
- Contracts and NDAs
- Anything containing customer/client details
- Business plans or strategic reports
- Budget details and financial forecasts
- New business ideas or development project paperwork
- Operational data – such as sales information, accounts, audits and performance analysis
Document shredding services
If you have a number of documents to be shredded, it’s usually necessary to use a professional service that will ensure the confidential waste is handled appropriately and disposed of properly once destroyed. Depending on the nature of your business, this could be something that you do as a one-off whenever needed, or if you produce lots of confidential waste on an ongoing basis, regular scheduled shredding might be the best option.
Depending on your circumstances, it might be preferable to do the shredding on-site at your business premises, or it could be a better option for the shredding service provider to take away your confidential waste to shred at their own facility. All destruction work adheres to BS EN 15713:2009.
With such a lot at stake when it comes to disposing of your organisation’s confidential waste in the right way, you’ll want to be sure that you’re choosing an experienced shredding service provider with high-quality standards. At EvaStore, document management is our business, and we pride ourselves on delivering best in class shredding services, along with our document storage and document scanning solutions.
Get in touch to find out how we can help you more effectively manage your confidential waste.