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Every business contains some form of sensitive data. Whether it’s related to their customers, clients, employees, or the business itself, this data can be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. Keep reading to learn more about the importance of shredding your business’s sensitive data.
Protects Customer Information
Federal and state laws require businesses to protect their customers’ data through safe handling. Properly managing this information includes responsibly storing data physically or digitally and how you destroy it. High-security shredding is one of the safest ways to dispose of documents, receipts, and any other physical data relating to your customers. Protecting your customers’ data also helps preserve your business’s reputation and prevents events that can significantly harm that reputation, such as data breaches or identity theft.
Keeps Employee Data Safe
Your customers aren’t the only members of your business that need protection. According to employee data privacy laws on both the federal and state levels, businesses must safely store and destroy employee information. The purpose of this measure is to protect their personal data and prevent issues such as identity theft and other crimes. Businesses must protect all employees’ data, even previous hires. If an employee no longer works for your business and you no longer need to hold their information, be sure to shred it carefully using a high-security machine.
Reduces Risk of Data Breaches
Data breaches put everyone’s personal data at risk, including your business’s, customers’, and employees’ data. Data breaches can occur because of many factors, though password leaks are a common cause. All it takes is one employee to throw away a password document or even a sticky note with login details to put your business at risk of a data breach. Training each of your employees in proper document storage and shredding is so crucial. Regular formal training can help minimize the chances of sensitive data accidentally falling into a criminal’s hands.
These are some of the reasons why shredding sensitive data is so important for a business. While you don’t have to shred every document that your business produces, it is crucial to shred sensitive information. Every business owner should know how to identify sensitive data. Once you identify what is and isn’t sensitive data, always make sure to shred the sensitive documents first before disposing of them.
