Protect The Information in Your Office!

Protect The Information in Your Office!

Protect The Information in Your Office!

The confidential information about your business and your clients is all over your office. Know the weak places that need to be addressed so you can prevent a costly data breach. Instituting an ongoing shredding program will help reduce the potential risk of private business information from getting into the wrong hands.

Waste Baskets

Every work area has a wastebasket so your staff can throw away anything they don’t need anymore without having to leave their work area. There are probably many other wastebaskets in other locations in your office like the file room, near copy machines and other places. All of these trash containers make it easy for information to be accessed by people that are not authorized to see them. Never put documents in the regular trash!

Recycle Bins

Everyone recognizes those blue recycle containers. They’re a great way to remind everyone of the importance of recycling to protect the environment. However, recycling containers don’t protect secure information. Recyclers make their money by separating recyclables by types like glass, plastic, and cardboard. Securely handling your confidential information is not part of the recycling process. Your company’s paper documents will probably never get shredded by a recycler, and that means your information will be available to anyone who wants to look. Never put business documents into a recycling bin they should always be shredded.

Desks & Work Stations

Business records stacked on a desk or in a workstation are not secure when left unattended or on your desk overnight. The numbers of people that come into your office every day plus the cleaning staff or maintenance crews can be numerous. Unsecured files are an invitation for unscrupulous people to take confidential information. Require your staff to put away all paper records before they leave their work area for an extended period of time or at the end of the day.

The File Room

The company file room houses most your business’s private documents, including the private information about your customers. If the file room is not secure in some manner, then your information is not protected. Your file room needs to be locked, and you need to control who has keys to access that important room.

File Cabinets

Your office may not have a file room, but you most definitely have file cabinets in your office. All your files cabinets need to have locks on them to protect your documents. Keys should be given to a limited number of your staff to control access to your files.

Copy Machines

Every company has at least one copy machine, and bigger companies will have many of them. Now think of how often you make too many copies or the copy is not clear enough or maybe the page shifted a little and you just throw away the papers. The mistake most people make is putting those copies in the trash. Don’t make that mistake! All copies being thrown away need to be shredded to protect any information on them.

The Answer

Instituting an ongoing document shredding program is the best way to prevent your information from getting into the wrong hands and be compliant with privacy laws. Institute a SHRED ALL policy in your company. That means that making shredding every document that’s being disposed of a requirement. Contact a professional document destruction company they will help you set up an ongoing document shredding program. They will also provide you with locking containers at no cost that will be distributed throughout your office so all paper files will be disposed of and secured until they are shredded. Your document destruction vendor will then come to your office with an onsite paper shredding truck and empty and destroy the contents of each container on a regular schedule.

FileShred is a locally owned document shredding and hard drive destruction service in Connecticut that will help you implement the best information destruction program for your office. Give us a call or visit our website at www.fileshred.net.

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