Running a successful school or university will always come with challenges, thanks to the responsibilities and power entrusted to them. Rules and regulations will always apply, built to keep young people safe, which must be followed properly and carefully.
The protection of data, concerning staff and students alike, is a key component. Any documents containing personal information must be securely stored or properly destroyed, which is where confidential shredding services can be particularly beneficial.
In this article, you can find out everything you need to know about employing shredding services for educational institutions, as well as information about our particular services at Highlander Security Shredding.
The Importance of Secure Document Destruction
Before implementing the services of a document shredding company, it’s important to understand why shredding is an important and expected process carried out by businesses. By doing so, you can determine whether confidential shredding services are what you need to ensure your facility is secure.
Protecting Students
With any business, protecting sensitive information about employees and customers is vital. For universities and schools, however, there is an added complication. Any educational institution has a responsibility to protect its staff and students, which includes the safe storage and disposal of any sensitive information about their person.
Compliance With The Law
Across the UK, businesses are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation, otherwise known as GDPR. This law is designed to protect against the misuse of sensitive personal information, helping to prevent the event of a data breach. A breach refers to a situation in which information has been lost or stolen, destroyed or changed without consent, or accessed by someone without permission.
Keeping Spaces Functional
Clutter might just be a small annoyance at home, but can be detrimental in the workplace. As every inch of space at a school is crucial, it’s important to clear out unneeded documents routinely. Filing cabinets are especially bulky, which is why you should only keep the essentials within them.
Protecting Reputation
Letting any information slip into the wrong hands can have severe consequences for any educational institution. Consequences can include legal action, which can lead to financial penalties. Legal action and data breaches can damage the reputation of a school or university, deterring students and staff from joining its ranks.
The Benefits of Outsourcing Shredding
Universities and schools can be targets for the theft of information, due to their responsibility to store large amounts of sensitive information. Luckily, shredding services can be employed to carefully destroy sensitive documents safely. Read on to learn just some of the benefits of outsourcing to a professional document shredding company.
Keeps Information Secure
When it comes to keeping confidential waste safe from prying eyes, employing a shredding service can be a brilliant solution. When removed from the site of your school or university, it becomes much more difficult to track. A professional shredding business should make sure any information is responsibly shredded, disposed of and safely kept away from criminal activity.
Saves Time
Staff time is precious, and should not be dedicated to simply shredding. Unfortunately, this is often the case when shredding as a task is undertaken internally, particularly without the provision of proper equipment. Small shredding tools cannot manage large amounts of documents, resulting in large chunks of time needing to be allotted for the sole purpose of shredding.
Destroys Effectively
Home shredding solutions can be useful for destroying personal documents, however, often they aren’t equipped to effectively shred sensitive information. The paper must be shredded into small pieces to ensure a document cannot be pieced back together when disposed of. This is a service provided by professional shredding companies, performed to meet security shredding requirements in the UK.
Promotes a Safe Workplace
The obligation to properly dispose of sensitive information can create a hindrance in your workplace, should you be carrying out disposals yourself. This can lead to stacks and rows of storage solutions in inappropriate places, resulting in blocked fire exits and trip hazards. Utilising a shredding service, on the other hand, will prevent this dangerous build-up of documents, saving students and staff from harm.
Confidential Shredding Services in Scotland
At Highlander Security Shredding, we help universities and schools dispose of confidential waste with ease. In this section, you’ll find out more about which services our company offers, and how these can be beneficial for schools and universities alike.
Confidential Waste Collections
The easiest solution for most businesses and institutions that require secure and confidential waste disposal is our shredding collection service. For this process, we provide collection equipment, easily storing documents that require shredding before collection. Our collection equipment comes in a variety of colours and sizes, resulting in stylish solutions for business shredding.
Drop-Off Options
If you’d rather transport your confidential waste to us, we accept drop-off shredding from both businesses and individuals. We accept these at our shredding site in East Kilbride, in any household waste bag, where your documents and papers will be shredded that same day. For extra security, we can even supply you with a Certificate of Destruction.
Other Services
Often, educational institutions produce far more than simply confidential waste. Luckily, our other services at Highlander Security Shredding can be beneficial for exactly this reason. We offer glass recycling services, a brilliant eco-friendly way to remove glass from any building. Likewise, our pallet and wood services are employed by a range of businesses, from fashion companies to food factories.
Find out more about our range of services available on our website.
Our Shredding Process
Before signing your institution up for any shredding service, it’s a good idea to get familiar with their processes. At Highlander Security Shredding, we believe it’s important for our customers to know what our services look like in action. Learn everything you need to know about shredding in this section or find more information on our shredding process on our dedicated website page.
Collecting
The first stage of our shredding process begins with collecting the confidential documents our customers have accumulated. Whether a one-off collection or part of a routine arrangement, these documents will be safely stored in one of our vehicles, ready for transportation.
Transporting
After loading the collected documents, our staff will transport the collected material in a GPS-tracked vehicle. We supply our customers with a Waste Transfer Note at this stage, demonstrating that possession of the waste has been transferred. Then, the vehicle will carry the paper to our secure shredding site.
Shredding
Once it has arrived, all documentation will be shredded effectively. We are fully accredited to both information security and security shredding standards, allowing us to comply with GDPR fully. As members of the United Kingdom Security Association, we are also regularly audited to ensure our shredding practices are meeting only the highest standards.
Certifying
Following the shredding process, we will then issue a Certificate of Destruction. This document is vital for company records, proving that all sensitive information has been destroyed to an acceptable level. The information generally included on a certificate issued by a reputable shredding company includes the time and date of the job, as well as the name of a company employee who witnessed the shredding.
Recycling
Sustainability is of the utmost importance, which is why Highlander Security Shredding makes sure all shredded paper is recycled. All shredded documents are sent to Highlander-approved waste paper recycling mills, ready to be transformed for new uses without risking sensitive data breaches.
Contact Us
From Aberdeen to Dumfries, we take pride in our high-quality services at Highlander Security Shredding. If you’re interested in setting up regular shredding services for your educational facility or business in Scotland, get a quick and easy quote on our website today. Even if you’re under contract with a different company, we can help you cover your buyout costs to get you started with our top services as soon as possible.
If you’re still unconvinced, view our work in action by accessing our online video gallery. We have a range of videos documenting each step of our services, giving you a full overview of how we will treat your documents, recycle products, and install equipment in your workplace.
To start disposing of your waste securely, look no further than Highlander Security Shredding. Visit our website to learn more about us, or please contact us for further support.