Secure document shredding services are easily accessible but many business owners still opt for an in-house shredding solution. The benefits of the choice are easy to understand – convenience, availability, and cost reduction.
To make an informed decision about in-house shredding, you should also acquaint yourself with the shortcomings and potential risks.
While using an in-house machine could be a good choice for the safe destruction of specific types of documents, it isn’t always optimal. Here are some of the hidden dangers and vulnerabilities you need to acquaint yourself with.
Paper Trash Is Considered Public Property
Even if you do an excellent job in terms of shredding documents you no longer require, you’ll still have to handle the disposal of the paper in the best possible way.
Here’s an important fact you have to understand – trash is considered public property. This means just about anyone, including identity thieves, can sort through the paper remains and attempt retrieving information.
The ruling in the California vs. Greenwood case is still setting the standard in this realm.
In that case, Greenwood had thrown away some incriminating information. That information was retrieved from the trash and used as evidence in a court case against Greenwood. California court ruled out that the retrieval of sensitive information from the trash wasn’t illegal as anything disposed of becomes public property.
While the dangers here are theoretical, it’s possible for someone to sort through the shredded remains and potentially extract sensitive information. Many businesses are not aware of the proper ways to get rid of such remains. Professional shredding service providers handle the recycling of the paper remains, making information virtually impossible to retrieve from those. Hence, in-house shredding isn’t optimal for sensitive documents like strategic papers that contain corporate secrets or personnel files.
No Regular Document Destruction Schedule
In-house shredding offers convenience due to the fact that documents can be destroyed at any given time. Unfortunately, this is also the downfall of having a shredding machine in the office.
Very often, sensitive documents will pile up for some time before they get shredded. Businesses will usually lack a destruction schedule that fulfills compliance and destruction requirements. As a result, sensitive data will often be sitting around and increasing vulnerability.
Professional document shredding service providers can set up a schedule for their clients. The aim of this program is to ensure compliance and get rid of sensitive data as soon as it is no longer needed. Maintaining such a schedule is vitally important, especially if a business hasn’t set up a calendar for regular destruction schedules.
The Cost of In-House Shredding
One of the rationales behind in-house shredding is cost-efficiency.
Many business owners believe that the possession of a shredder is much more financially-savvy than opting for a document destruction service upon necessity.
This isn’t necessarily the case. Very often, professional shredding proves to be more budget-friendly than the operation and maintenance of a shredder on the premises.
You will have to account for the cost of the shredder itself. But this isn’t the only important expense.
Large piles of documents will have to be processed by someone. What this means is that some employees will have to dedicate a lot of time to shredding. This time could have been dedicated to more important, strategic tasks with the potential to boost corporate revenue.
In addition, in-house shredding could lead to mistakes and compliance issues. If these are exposed in an audit, the company will be forced to pay fines. Such mistakes are incredibly costly and the risk of them occurring is almost entirely eliminated whenever a professional service is employed.
No Verification Process
Doing in-house shredding will have you engaging in another important process – proving that your document destruction practices meet legal requirements.
Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to verify that the process established in your enterprise meets legal requirements for the protection of sensitive information.
Professional document shredding service providers are certified and licensed to offer such solutions to their clients. Hence, outsourcing shredding means you can rest assured all legal requirements are fulfilled.
When you choose a professional service, you get proof of destruction that can be presented to authorities upon request. Usually, you will benefit from an on-site service that will have all steps completed within the business premises. You can observe the destruction taking place and you’ll also receive a certificate at the end.
So here’s the bottom line – in-house shredding may be good for reducing the amount of paper in your office. If you are concerned about privacy and efficiency, owning and operating a shredder is not the best choice.
Not taking document security seriously will sooner or later lead to major consequences. Paper-based documentation is incredibly vulnerable, especially if you attempt to handle all processes on your own. Spending some money on professional shredding and document destruction can actually help you save money while also making sure that vital information pertaining to your corporate operations is handled in the best possible way.