13200 NW 38th Court - Miami, Fl 33054
Office:305.688.2900 - Fax: 305.688.2916
Your corporation is at catastrophic risk when trade secrets, customer lists, pricing data, credit card and other critical information are exposed.
1. Every Business Has Information That Requires Destruction.
All businesses have occasion to discard confidential data. Customer lists, price lists, sales statistics, drafts of bids and correspondence, and even memos contain information about business activity which would interest any competitor. Every business is also entrusted with information that must be kept private. Employees and customers have the legal right to have this data protected.
Without the proper safeguards, information ends up in the dumpster where it is readily, and legally, available to anybody. The trash is considered by business espionage professionals as the single most available source of competitive and private information from the average business. Any establishment that discards private and proprietary data without the benefit of destruction exposes itself to the risk of criminal and civil prosecution, as well as the costly loss of business.
2. Stored Records Should Be Destroyed On A Regular Schedule.
The period of time that business records are stored should be determined by a retention schedule that takes into consideration their useful value to the business and the governing legal requirements. No record should be kept longer than this retention period.
By not adhering to a program of routinely destroying stored records, a company exhibits suspicious disposal practices that could be negatively construed in the event of litigation or audit. Also, the new (Federal Rule 26) requires that, in the event of a law suit, each party provide all relevant records to the opposing counsel within 85 days of the defendant’s initial response. If either of the litigants does not fulfill this obligation, it will result in a summary finding against them. By destroying records according to a set schedule, a company appropriately limits the amount of materials it must search through to comply with this law.
From a risk management perspective, the only acceptable method of discarding stored records is to destroy them by a method that ensures that the information is obliterated. Documenting the exact date that a record is destroyed is a prudent and recommended legal precaution.
3. Incidental Business Records Discarded On A Daily Basis Should Be Protected.
Without a program to control it, the daily trash of every business contains information that could be harmful. This information is especially useful to competitors because it contains the details of current activities. Discarded daily records include phone messages, memos, and misprinted forms, drafts of bids and drafts of correspondence.
All businesses suffer potential exposure due to the need to discard these incidental business records. The only means of minimizing this exposure is to make sure such information is securely collected and destroyed.
4. Recycling (Non secure) is Not An Adequate Alternative For Information Destruction.
To extract the scrap value from office paper, recycling companies use unscreened, minimum wage workers, to extensively sort the paper under unsecured conditions. The acceptable paper is stored for indefinite periods of time until there is enough of a particular type to sell.
There is no fiduciary responsibility inherent in the recycling scenario. Paper is given away or sold and, by doing so, a company gives up the right to have a say in how it is handled. There is, also, no practical means of establishing the exact date that a record is destroyed. In the event of an audit or litigation, this could be a legal necessity. And, further, if something of a private nature does surface, the selection of this unsecured process could be interpreted as negligent. For all these reasons, the choice of recycling as a means of information destruction is undesirable from a risk management perspective.
If environmental responsibility is a concern, materials may be recycled after they are destroyed or a firm can contract a service that will destroy the materials under secure conditions before recycling them. Any recycling company that minimizes the need for security has its own interests in mind and should be avoided.
We at FILE PRO recycle documents for the Department of Defense, Dept. of Homeland security and the County of Miami Dade. We WILL make sure that your vital documents are recycled in a secure manner.
5. A Certificate Of Destruction Does Not Relieve A Company From Its Obligation To Keep Information Confidential.
Any company contracting an information destruction service should require that it provide them with a signed testimonial, documenting the date that the materials were destroyed. The "certificate of destruction", as it is commonly referred, is an important legal record of compliance with a retention schedule. It does not, however, effectively transfer the responsibility to maintain the confidentiality of the materials to the contractor.
If private information surfaces after the vendor accepts it, the court is bound to question the process by which the particular contractor was selected. Any company not showing due diligence in their selection of a contractor that is capable of providing the necessary security could be found negligent.
And, from a practical standpoint, if proprietary or private information is lost or leaked by the fraud or negligence of a vendor, the obligations of that vendor is irrelevant. The firm whose information falls into the wrong hands stand to lose the most, either from loss of business, prosecution or unfavorable publicity.
Since a business cannot transfer it s responsibility to maintain confidentiality, it must be certain that it is dealing with a reputable company with superior security procedures. Unfortunately, there are those information destruction services that provide certificates of destruction while having no semblance of security and, sometimes, no destruction process available to them. Anyone interested in contracting a data destruction service is advised to thoroughly review their policies and procedures, conduct an initial site audit and conduct subsequent unannounced audits. On-site document destruction is also an option in most cities.
6. Internal Personnel Should Not Be Responsible For Destroying Certain Information.
Common sense dictates that payroll information and materials that involve labor relations or legal affairs should not be entrusted to lower level employees for destruction. But, beyond that, competition sensitive information is best protected from them as well. It has been established, time and again, that low wage employees often have the economic incentive to capitalize on their access to it. The only acceptable alternatives are to have the materials destroyed under supervision by a carefully selected, high security service.
7. Information Protection Is A Vital Issue To Senior Management.
Top executives from Fortune 500 companies ranked the security of company records as one of the top five critical issues facing business. When asked which issues required immediate attention and policy development, the security of company records ranked second only to employee health screening.
All rights reserved. Copyright 2009 File Pro Inc.
International (Professional Records & Information Services Management) is the not-for-profit trade association for companies that provide their clients with protection, access, retention, storage and disposal of their vital information.
International Trade Association for companies providing information destruction services. NAID’s mission is to promote the information destruction industry and the standards and ethics of its member companies.
SECURE SHREDDING
What Should you Shred?
• Account records and ledgers
• Activity sheets
• Advertising
• Applications
• Appraisals
• Bank statements
• Bids and quotes
• Budgets
• Business plans
• Canceled checks
• Client lists
• Contact lists
• Corporate tax records
• Correspondence
• Customer records
• Disciplinary reports and promotions
• Educational reports
• Expense reports
• Financial statements
• Forecasts
• Formulas, product plans and tests
• General service information
• Health and safety reports
• Internal reports
• Legal Documents
• Lottery tickets
• Magnetic media
• Maps and blueprints
• Marketing plans
• Medical records
• Microfilm and microfiche
• New product information
• Payroll documents
• Performance appraisals
• Personnel files
• Plastic credit and ID cards
• Research and development reports
• Sales forecasts
• Specification drawings
• Strategic reports
• Strategies
• Supplier purchase orders
• Supplier reports
• Suppliers specifications
• Test scores and class rosters
• Training information
• Treatment programs