How Your Company’s Data Retention and Destruction Policies Impact Customer Privacy

While the need for a strict and closely followed retention and destruction policy at your company can be quite clear in many ways, there are some other reasons why forming one is critical that you may not necessarily have considered. To get a better idea of what we mean, let’s take a look at some of the most significant ways in which your policies can impact customer privacy.

Poor Retention and Destruction Policies Can Lead to a Data Breach

It’s not always obvious when the information contained in your IT equipment and documents represent the potential for a serious data breach, but there’s often plenty that clever criminals can use to cause havoc at your company and in the lives of your customers. As such, it’s always best to assume everything has sensitive information on it.

Data Breaches Can Lead to Identity Theft

Even among what may appear to be very little information, motivated data thieves may eventually be able to steal the identities of the customers whose information they’ve acquired. The situation then goes from your customer losing their privacy to losing their own identity and money.

The Impact of a Data Breach on Your Company

Protecting customer privacy is crucial for your company in more ways than one, as just some of the ways that a breach can potentially impact your organization include the following:

Damaging Customer Trust

When your customers discover that you’ve mismanaged their sensitive information and that their privacy has subsequently been breached, they’re likely to lose a hefty amount of the trust they originally placed in you, and you can very likely lose them as patrons altogether. Maintain the trust they hold with a clear retention schedule that prevents the possibility of any breaches.

Damaging Your Company’s Brand

A loss of consumer trust can easily extend well beyond the individuals who have had their information stolen and leaked to the public at large. Identity theft is a major issue these days, and if the world learns that your company has allowed it to happen to your customers, your brand is going to take a massive hit, and you’re likely to lose a vast amount of potential customers.

With that being said, you should not only maintain a strict retention and destruction policy for this reason but also a clear retention schedule. In the event that a data breach leads to a lawsuit, you’ll need clear documentation to show the specific actions you took to secure your customers’ personal information.

Costing You a Lot of Money

The loss of revenue that comes with losing customers and scaring away potential new ones is difficult to calculate, and it’s not the only place in which you may lose money. You may be fined or sued for failing to properly retain and destroy your documents or data-containing media and hard drives, and allowing them to fall into the wrong hands.

Data Destruction Services in North Dakota and South Dakota

For help protecting the privacy of customers in both North Dakota and South Dakota, reach out to SEAM Services for proper data destruction today.