How a Retention Schedule Can Revolutionize Your Company’s Document Destruction

Keeping sensitive data safe from prying eyes has always been a priority for companies, but in today’s technologically advanced world, protecting your data is more important than ever. As technology becomes more and more sophisticated, so do hackers, and sometimes not even standard encryption can protect your company against a security breach.

Whether a hacker gains access to account passwords, personal information, or even credit card and billing information, billions of dollars can be lost through identity theft. You may think that keeping sensitive information physically on-hand will keep it safe from a breach, but all it takes is one piece of paper falling into the wrong hands.

How does data safety affect your customers?

The safety of your customers’ data is critical to run a successful business. Even if a customer is able to remain unaffected by a security breach, the fact that a security breach occurred at all will likely cause them to terminate their business with your company. Therefore, communicating your company’s policies regarding customer data safety should be an inherent part of your customer outreach.

Make sure your customers have a clear understanding of the exact data protections you have in place and why they are the most effective protections available. If your company retains physical copies of sensitive customer data, make your customers aware of when and how physical copies will be destroyed.

Is it safe to retain physical copies of data?

Technology is not infallible, which is why many businesses prefer to keep physical record of all business dealings and personal information flowing throughout the company. However, this comes with understandable risk, as sensitive information in the wrong hands could lead to disaster.

Hard copies of classified data can also open up a company to liability when data destruction comes into play, as it often does with physical copies. Plus, there’s always a possibility that a document will be accidentally destroyed when it was still needed to conduct business.

With the threat of breach hanging over both physical copies of data as well as computerized copies, it may seem like your company is stuck between a rock and hard place. However, the worries surrounding data destruction can be largely alleviated by creating a retention schedule for your company’s paper shredding.

Company retention schedules

A company’s retention schedule determines exactly how long all documents are kept before being disposed of and exactly how the disposal and/or document shredding will take place.

This way, vital information won’t be able to slip through the cracks and get destroyed before its time or fall into the hands of the wrong person. Plus, the schedule will keep employees more organized and encourage them to be more aware of the sensitive information passing through their devices and/or filing cabinet throughout the fiscal year.

When it comes time to shred your documents, recycle your retired electronics, or even perform necessary asset recovery in South Dakota or North Dakota, look no further than SEAM. Contact us today for a quote on our top-notch services.