Data breaches are extremely serious for businesses in all sectors. As well as opening employees, clients and members of the general public up to identity theft and fraud, breaches in confidentiality can be harmful to your business in other ways too. Customers will lose trust in your business and you could suffer serious damage to your brand and reputation.
With more and more stories in the press of governmental employees and MPs, among others, ‘losing’ or leaving behind important documents, the public are understandably worried about this happening to them, and it is ranked as one of their main worries, even above national security.
As well as data being stolen or lost in transportation, another area which is of primary concern is when important documentation is thrown away. The British Security Industry Association (BSIA) stresses the importance of having an effective data destruction strategy in place.
Document shredding is the best way of destroying physical information. Anything which contains customer details, or confidential information relating to your company or business practices, such as a new project in the pipeline for example, should be shredded. You should also make sure that you have the documents destroyed on your premises, so that you know that nothing could have happened to them in between you deciding to dispose of them and them making it to the shredder.
Also ensure that all staff are aware of your confidentiality policy and what they are supposed to do with any documents containing confidential information which are to be disposed of.This guest blog post is written by Webmaster.