When outsourcing a service for your business, research is essential. Arguably, outsourcing your document destruction requires extra diligence. After all, you’re entrusting your most confidential information to a third party. Here are several things you should know about professional paper shredding:
Privacy Protection is a Top Priority
A truly professional paper shredding operation is fully committed to protecting your privacy. All shredding technicians should be required to pass extensive background screening and sign confidentiality agreements prior to employment. Ongoing training should be conducted to keep them up-to-date on evolving identity theft and business fraud risks.
GPS tracking technology is standard on all onsite mobile shredding trucks, as well as on pickup and delivery vehicles. The shredding plant itself is a private facility, closed to the public, and is equipped with state-of-the-art security and surveillance systems. Access to the building is tightly controlled and monitored 24 hours a day.
Not Every Provider is NAID AAA Certified
The National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) is the authoritative, standard-setting body for the information destruction industry. NAID gives their AAA Certification only to paper shredding companies that pass rigorous, unannounced audits in the following areas:
Employee hiring and screening practices
Operational security standards
Destruction processes and methods
Insurance liability
To achieve and maintain NAID AAA Certification, a shredding provider must meet and continuously exceed these rigorous shredding and destruction standards. For this reason, make sure you choose a NAID AAA Certified paper shredding partner for your document destruction needs.
You Have Options
Above all, professional paper shredding allows you to choose a destruction solution that fits your budget and document disposal needs. A scheduled shredding service eliminates using an office paper shredder to dispose of documents. Your shredding service provider will strategically place locked collection containers in your office, free of charge, to ensure quick and secure disposal of sensitive documents and files. Employees can quickly slip documents and whole files into the containers without removing paperclips and staples.
One-time purge services are ideal for organizations that need reliable document destruction quarterly or annually. Scheduled and one-time shredding services can be performed on-site at your facility with a mobile shredding truck or offsite at a shredding plant.
Select companies even offer drop off shredding where you can bring your unwanted documents to an approved collection location for secure destruction. Like scheduled and one-time shredding, drop off shredding enables you to destroy confidential files easily and quickly. A professional service technician checks your documents in, shreds them and then securely recycles the resulting particles.
It Keeps Your Business Compliant
Staying compliant with provincial and federal privacy protection laws is reason enough to destroy your unwanted and outdated documents. In-house shredding processes don’t produce a verifiable record of regulatory compliance. With a professional paper shredding service, a Certificate of Destruction noting the time and date of destruction is issued every time your documents are destroyed.
Ultimately, professional paper shredding gives your business a comprehensive solution for destroying documents efficiently, cost-effectively and securely.