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Why It Makes Sense to Shred Everything

GDPR and Data Protection law means that certain documents must be retained for months, years, and sometimes even indefinitely. But, what about the paperwork you no longer need? To avoid time being wasted inspecting paper waste for confidential information, it can make more sense to shred everything no longer needed.

Did you know, the mishandling of paperwork causes the majority of data breaches?

We live in a world gripped by an increasing focus on online data privacy and how businesses handle data. News channels are constantly reporting on the latest email data breach or hack. It may be surprising to learn therefore that mishandling paperwork causes most data breaches. The International Association of Privacy Professionals studied data security incidents across three highly regulated industries. They discovered that mishandled paperwork accounted for up to 73% of incident cases.¹ Another study revealed that 88% of UK data breaches reported to the ICO in the last two years were caused by human error.² With so many incidents surrounding paperwork and such high risks of human error, it’s time to rethink data disposal strategies.

What are the risks?

Without adequately managing paper destruction and staff knowledge, there could be a genuine risk of a data breach. A data breach could have serious implications for any business. Privacy breaches can lead to reputational damage, loss of customer trust, loss of business, prosecution and large financial penalties. By implementing a Shred Everything policy for all unneeded paperwork, you can keep data safe – and save time in the process.

Reasons to Shred Everything

  • We can all reduce the risk of human error simply by shredding all waste paper. This alone could be the step your organisation needs to minimise the risk of a data breach. Employees will no longer need to worry about whether documents contain confidential information or risk misjudgement.
  • Shredding everything simplifies your company’s document disposal strategy and will save time. There will be no need to repeatedly train employees in how to look for confidential information on their unwanted documents. They can put everything into one of our secure, lockable containers, and we’ll do the rest.
  • Shredding all unneeded paperwork will help your company stay on top of document disposal obligations in line with GDPR.
  • As an added bonus, shredding all paper you no longer need is environmentally friendly. We will recycle 100% of the paper we destroy at UK paper mills. We are also very proud to be a CarbonNeutral® certified company.
confidential paper examples

If you want to know more about our shredding services, our secure containers, or even just have a chat with one of our shredding specialists, get in touch today.

For more information about the sources cited in this article, visit the links below:
¹ – IAPP Privacy Advisor series of reports on privacy program metrics and benchmarking for incident response management found here.
² – Verdict’s 2018 report on UK data breaches found here.

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