Avoid Identity Theft with HIPAA Compliant Secure Document Shredding

Identity theft is a major risk these days. Crooks go dumpster diving just to get hold of employee information, payroll records, customer lists, financial records, loan applications and approval, supplier invoices, contracts, project proposals, research and development reports, marketing materials and even medical files to be used in various scams. If your company is handling any of these, you need to shred it. To do this properly, you need professional HIPAA compliant secure document shredding and destruction services.

According to RecordShred, a document shredding and information destruction service, dumpster diving is considered legal in the United States. Once any document is in a dumpster, it is free to be taken by anyone for any use whatsoever. Unscrupulous parties can use such data for identity theft, corporate espionage and fraud. RecordShred reports that identity theft occurs every 13 seconds in the United States, and according to the Better Business Bureau, some 80% of such identity thefts come from paper records that have not been properly secured. This has become so rampant that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation considers identity theft and information based fraud as the fastest growing crimes in America, according to the RecordShred website. It further refers to data from the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) which values the annual losses of US corporations to trade secrets theft at over $45 billion dollars.

The most important fact for any company to know is that your company can be held liable for the loss of information to identity theft or corporate espionage if the data was taken from your company due to your negligence. Privacy laws such as FACTA, HIPAA, GLB, FERPA and Sarbanes-Oxley ensure this. The trash bin, dumpster and other disposal areas are the primary sources of data for information thieves. If the document, film, cd, dvd, disk or tape originated from your company, then you may have to pay up to millions of dollars in liability. It is your company’s responsibility to ensure that all such information are kept completely secure through the implementation of an internal compliance policy. Afterwards, they should be destroyed in a similarly secure manner.

The best way for a company to ensure safe destruction of information is to get the services of another professional company like RecordShred that has focused its efforts in creating the safest and most efficient system at the right price. In fact, using a professional service will redound to a 25% savings for your company as compared to the use of in-house office shredders. This is because the use of in-house office shredders will require man hours from your existing staff, taking them away from their core duties and responsibilities. It is also an added burden on them, considered drudge work, which may affect their overall morale and productivity. You also have to take into consideration the cost of equipment acquisition, maintenance, repair and replacement. Furthermore, when you do the document shredding yourself in the office, you will not have a written verification of secure destruction which is required by law for your records and auditing.

A professional document shredding and information destruction service like RecordShred not just shreds documents but also destroys other information products such as computer hard drives, cds, dvds, film, tape and all types of imaging. They cover medical files destruction and x-ray film destruction. Secure bins of various sizes and shapes are provided with the service, free of charge, so that employees can conveniently comply with secure disposal of documents and other information media. Such bins can be locked even while in the office for tight security. On scheduled dates, these bins shall be collected for mobile shredding on site. Even documents that are bound with paper clips, staples, binder clips or other binding methods may be disposed of and destroyed without any need for disassembling them. The destruction is secure and monitored. Afterwards, a certificate of destruction is issued to the company and RecordShred provides a witness for legal compliance.

Avoid lawsuits against your company stemming from identity theft or corporate espionage. Make sure you get reliable and professional HIPAA compliant secure document shredding and destruction services.