WHY
SHRED?
Records
That Need Safe Destruction:
|
Customer Mailing Lists |
Research & Development Data |
|
Negotiable Documents |
Contracts |
|
Sales Forecasts |
Meeting Notes |
|
Accounting Records |
Payroll Records |
|
Personnel Records |
Bids and Quotations |
|
Budget Data |
Confidential Letters, Memos |
|
Prospect Lists |
Financial Reports |
|
Business Plans |
Medical Information |
|
Blue Prints |
Expense Reports |
|
Labor Estimates |
Engineering Drawings |
|
Production Reports |
Credit Cards |
|
Inventory Reports |
Cancelled Checks |
|
Bank Statements |
Security Holding Statements |
|
Copy Machine Rejects/Excess |
Legal Signatures |
|
|
And More………. |
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 letters, 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. Business espionage professionals
consider the trash the single most available source of competitive and private
information from the average business. Any establishment that discards private
property data without the benefit of destruction exposes itself to the risk of
criminal and civil prosecution, as well as the costly loss of business.
Stored Records Should Be Destroyed On a Regular
Basis.
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 lawsuit, each party will 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 could 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
recommended legal precaution.
