For business owners and other professionals, confidential shredding is a must. While many businesses are moving their data and systems to be fully paperless, some businesses are not. For companies with paper documents and confidential details in tangible forms, shredding and confidential disposal are vital. Our blog dives into the benefits of confidential shredding for a business, and what the potential risks are for not handling your sensitive information safely. To find out more, keep on reading!
What Are Confidential Documents?
When it comes to confidential business documents, this could cover a range of different things, which is why it’s important to be aware of the sensitive information you have at your disposal. Typical confidential business documents would include:
Financial Documents – Financial documents can include business and client information, such as bank statements, invoices, cash flow statements and other financial transactions.
Insurance Documents – This includes any sensitive information regarding your business’ insurance policies like bank details and account numbers.
Legal Contracts – These could be employee contracts as well as trademark and copyright documents that relate to the business.
Business Plans & Strategy – Any documents relating to your own business’ strategy or operations that are not public knowledge are also confidential.
Customer & Client Information – Your business may be responsible for a range of customer details including purchases, bank details, addresses…etc.
HR Documents – This would typically be payroll data, employee information and employee bank details.
Keeping these documents safe from the wrong hands is essential, and the consequences of failing to keep them safe can be severe. Keep reading to find out more about the safety of confidential shredding.
Why Do I Need To Shred My Confidential Documents?
You may think that simply filing away all your confidential documents is good enough to keep them safe. But, when you need to dispose of sensitive material, throwing away these documents can actually do more harm than good. Throwing out documents without confidential shredding and disposal puts this information at risk of falling into the wrong hands. Read below about the importance and the benefits of confidential paper shredding.
Client Security
One of the most important benefits of secure document shredding is client security. It’s a secure and safe way to dispose of your paper waste documents. It can be challenging for businesses to run completely paper free, meaning there will likely always be some confidential documentation in a hard copy.
Businesses will most likely always have some kind of sensitive data regarding their clients. From account numbers and financial information to addresses and even date of birth. Disposing of these documents safely massively reduces the risk of them falling into the wrong hands and being used for criminal or fraudulent activity.
Employee Security
It’s not just clients who need their data protected. Your employees also entrust a lot of details with the business they are working for. Again, things like account numbers, payroll details, employment history and other pieces of information are available to employers, and need to be disposed of safely.
Business Security
Last, but not least, is business security. While client and employee security are of the utmost importance, taking care of your business financial documents is also vital. For businesses who lose data, suffer from data breaches or have information leaked, it affects a business’ reputation. This data falling into the wrong hands can be detrimental financially, and can be potentially harmful in cases of identity theft or crimes that attack your business. However, the reputational damage caused by these losses can make customers and clients less inclined to work with your business. This can lead to severe financial losses and even legal cases which are not good for any business.
Confidential shredding is a good way of protecting not only your client and customer data, but your business data too.
Storage Space
Paper and documents can take up more space in your workplace than you realise. From stacks of papers on your desk to the files in your cabinets, documents and paper take up a lot of space. While many businesses are going paperless, for a range of reasons, shredding your documents is the safest way to ensure that this information is destroyed and disposed of effectively, freeing up plenty of space in your office and keeping it nice and organised! Not to mention, papers can be a fire hazard, especially when you are overflowing with documents.
Time & Money
Hiring a shredding company to collect any sensitive documents and dispose of them properly is a very effective way to deal with your shredding needs. Delegating this task internally can be time consuming and laborious, which is why many companies decide to hire a shredding service to help. Shredding services allow you to rely on them to properly and safely dispose of your documentation, freeing up your time and taking a weight off your shoulders.
Environmental Consciousness
Whether you’re an eco-warrior or not, another great benefit of shredding documents is the impact on the environment. A lot of the time, shredded paper is either recycled into paper or up-cycled into other products. By shredding your documents with a shredding company, you can rely on them to dispose of the paper waste in an eco-friendly way. Recycling your paper waste can be good for your brand image by helping you to reduce your business’ carbon footprint!
Secure Documents In The Wrong Hands: What Are The Risks?
When secure and confidential documents fall into the wrong hands, this can be detrimental in a range of ways. For businesses and individuals, protecting employee, client and business details is vital for safety and security reasons. Read below to find some of the risks associated with confidential documents falling into the wrong hands.
Theft & Fraud
Failure to shred your documents can result in theft and even identity fraud. These are both serious crimes that can be potentially very dangerous. Criminals can potentially use your details and other information to gain access to important personal accounts and business accounts. They may steal more sensitive information, cause financial losses or interfere with client information and data. Not only will this type of crime cause financial losses, it can also result in reputational damage too.
Identity fraud is another serious problem that can have a serious negative impact. When perpetrators steal personal information about individuals, they can easily find the information they need to impersonate the victim. From addresses to account numbers, criminals can access your information and they can start committing fraudulent activity. Identity fraud can have serious financial and emotional consequences, which is why it is important to protect yourself in any way possible. Keeping secure passwords and destroying paper copies with important details are vital.
Information Leaks
Unshredded documents can easily end up in the wrong hands, and for businesses, sensitive information being leaked is never a good thing. Critical business data and client information getting out can have serious repercussions for your business. Confidential shredding is one of the best ways to protect yourself and your business from these kinds of threats.
Legal Consequences
Following data breaches and information leaks, there could be legal consequences that your business faces. Because businesses have a legal requirement to protect necessary information, data leaks can result in legal cases. This can cause serious financial losses and damage the reputation of a business even further. By shredding confidential documents, your clients, employees and business are all protected.
Highlander Security Shredding: Confidential Paper Shredding & More
If you’re looking for a reliable and secure document shredding company, look no further. Here at Highlander Security Shredding, we understand the importance of shredding your business documents thoroughly and disposing of them in the safest way possible. Staying protected against theft and fraud is extremely important, and we are here to help. From office paper recycling to business and personal shredding, we offer a range of convenient services.
For further enquiries about our services or how we can help, feel free to contact us today to speak to our team directly.
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