The Ultimate Guide to Document Shredding

Document shredding is very common in the workplace but sometimes its significance can often be played down. Unsecure document shredding can lead to your business falling victim to identity theft and even fraud, so how can you handle securely destroying your old paper documents?

Blog Contents:

What is document shredding?

Document shredding is the act of destroying paper documents beyond reconstruction by placing them through a shredder which cuts them down into thousands of confetti like pieces. Shredding is the most secure style of document disposal and prevents them from landing in unauthorised hands or being reconstructed and used in an illegal manner.

What are the benefits of document shredding?

Secure document shredding has many benefits to help your business ensure compliance and confidentiality. The benefits of document shredding include:

Productivity

If you have paper documents lying around the office or workplace environment, they can soon get in the way of day-to-day operations. Having a large volume of documents can increase the time that it takes employees to find the document they require, this can be highly frustrating for all employees.

Additionally, using an external document shredding provider ensures that your employees can continue with their day-to-day tasks and not waste good time by shredding documents in the office as this can be very time consuming.

Environmentally friendly

A secure external shredding provider can help companies reduce their environmental impact. Once paper documents have been shredded, they can be recycled. By recycling paper documents, the materials are diverted from landfills, this helps reduce greenhouse gases, energy and water usage.

The recycled particles can then be used to help create new usable paper.

Cost effective

When choosing an external document shredding provider, you are ultimately saving your business money. You don’t need to purchase a shredder, you don’t need to remove any paper clips or staples and you also don’t need to pay staff to securely destroy your documents.

Using an external provider can help businesses manage their cash resources and overall profitability.

Security

Ultimately, document shredding is secure and helps protect your personal data. Documents are shredded into small confetti like pieces and this makes it virtually impossible for the documents to be reconstructed. Sensitive, personal and business information should all be securely shredded to prevent any data from landing into the wrong hands.

Document shredding is also GDPR compliant as it ensures that the information is destroyed correctly and beyond reconstruction.

Protection of data

By ensuring that all sensitive information is thoroughly destroyed, you can reduce the threat of major data breaches as these can put your business, customers and employees at risk. Data breaches are not only costly in the data they expose, but also costly in the fines that your business can face.

Reduce the risk of this by securely destroying your documents with an external document shredding provider.

Hazard reduction

By removing old documents and destroying them, you reduce the risk of accidentally destroying a document that you need.

Additionally, large build ups of paper can cause a trip and fire hazard so by removing these, you are helping protect your employees and environment. Leaving documents lying around can also lead to potential data breaches as employees can view sensitive information that they are unauthorised to view, secure document shredding can reduce this risk.

Convenience

By using an external document shredding provider, it couldn’t be any easier. Simply gather the documents you no longer require as these will be collected. Once collected they will be securely destroyed and then recycled correctly.

Using an in-office shredder can be a stressful and laborious process which takes away valuable time from your employees.

Increased reputation

When securely destroying your documents, your business can use this to their advantage. Document shredding highlights the concern for data protection and confidentiality and this message can be shared with customers to show how your company complies with GDPR.

Furthermore, compliance with data protection and destruction ensures that your customers can trust you. Once the trust is broken however, this can be very hard to regain.

What paper documents require shredding?

To be compliant with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) personal and business documents that contain confidential information must be securely destroyed. This includes:

Client information such as contact details and payment records
Financial records such as bank statements
Employee information such as records, insurance and tax information
Emails
Old cheques
Old ID badges (plastic versions can also be shredded!)

And personal documents such as:

Bank statements
Medical documents and records
Tax information

If you are unsure whether your documents need to be securely destroyed or just placed in a regular recycling bin, you should always scan through the document for any personal details that could be potentially exposed. Additionally, getting a second opinion for a professional document shredding provider can be beneficial for future practices.

What paper documents should not be destroyed?

Whilst there are many documents that your business can shred, there are also some that you shouldn’t shred. Examples of these documents include:

Tax Records

Although you only need to retain tax records for 6 years, it is always recommended to keep these beyond that date as they may be required should your business be under investigation with HMRC.

Property Records

Payment records, agreements, contracts and deeds relating to commercial properties should be retained.

Unsettled Bills

Documents related to ongoing matters such as late or missed payments should not be shredded until the case is settled between all parties.

Contracts

Whether these be staff or supplier contracts, they should always be retained as they may be required at any point or need to be referred back to.

How can documents be destroyed?

Traditionally, there are three different styles of shredders that can destroy documents beyond reconstruction. These different types are:

Micro-cut Shredders

These cut paper documents so fine that they turn into a powder. The documents are impossible to recreate, this is the most secure style of paper document shredders.

Cross-cut Shredders

This type of shredder turns paper documents into little confetti like pieces once they have been shredded. Cross cut shredders are suitable for both commercial and domestic use, however cross-cut is not as secure as micro-cut.

Strip-cut Shredders

Documents are cut into long, thin pieces. This is the least secure style of shredding as documents can be reconstructed. Sensitive and personal documents should never be destroyed by a strip-cut shredder.

How can documents be prepared for shredding?

As you are about to destroy a document beyond repair, you should be certain that you do not require this for any reason. It is always recommended to keep a digital copy of documents, just in case the physical copy is damaged, or mistakenly shredded.

Before shredding business and personal documents, you should complete the following:

Remove any staples, paperclips and other tough materials that could potentially cause a jam in the shredder
Double check if you or anyone else will need the document before committing to the shredder
Ensure that credit cards and discs are shredded separately to paper documents, always ensure that these are old, expired and not required

The importance of secure data destruction

As previously mentioned, you must securely destroy documents under the GDPR regulations. GDPR is designed to protect personal data and when this is in your hands, it is only your responsibility to securely destroy this.

Should you not comply with GDPR, or breach GDPR, your business can be fined up to 4% of your annual turnover, or £17.5 million, depending on which value is higher. This can be significant for the majority of businesses, along with the fine you will also have a tarnished reputation.

Furthermore, secure document destruction can help reduce the threat of data breaches. If your documents are not destroyed, or can be easily recreated, they can be used in a criminal manner against your business or customers. This is a huge risk to any size business across all sectors. By choosing an external document shredding provider, you can nullify your risk of data breaches and potential exposure as documents are securely destroyed beyond repair and disposed of correctly.

Additionally, as a business, you have an ethical responsibility to care for and look after your customers personal data. They have trusted you with this and expect this to be protected and valued. Exposing this data due to poor practices leads to customers losing faith in your business and filing complaints which can have significant financial implications for the future of your company.

How does on-site document shredding compare to off-site document shredding?

On-site document shredding is completed at your business, it is your responsibility to purchase a shredder, destroy the documents and then manage the paper waste accordingly. The costs associated with this style of document destruction are lower, but it does have an increased risk as you have to trust your team members when handling and destroying potentially sensitive information.

Off-site document shredding is typically more expensive than on-site, however it does have lower security risks. As a business, you would need to gather the documents that you no longer require, these are either then taken to the off-site facility or collected. The documents are then securely destroyed beyond repair using industrial grade shredders.

Secure document shredding by RADS

Rads are specialists in secure document shredding. We use industrial grade shredders and our highly skilled team ensures that your sensitive business documents are securely destroyed beyond recreation.

To find out more about us, or to discuss how our secure document shredding services can help your business, please contact us today and we will be happy to assist.