For many businesses the end of the tax year can result in stacks of confidential financial information piled up in back rooms and storage areas. After the required retention periods have passed, these boxes of files could leave you vulnerable to a security breach.
A new financial year is a perfect time for businesses and individuals to review their paperwork from the previous year and decide whether documents need to be stored or destroyed. Any documents that are no longer required, must be securely disposed of and documents that are needed can either be stored at the office, digitally or off-site in secure storage.
Lost or stolen information can increase the risk of a data breach, and there can be significant fines for non-compliance under GDPR. Shredall SDS Group is compliant with the GDPR standard and we want to ensure that our customers are too.
“We recommend that businesses review their existing information management processes, including how information is stored and disposed of. Keeping unnecessary piles of records with personal information is inviting trouble, it is paramount businesses select the right contractors with the correct ISO Certification” Ben Shipley, Sales Manager
What to keep?
By law almost every document has retention requirements but how you handle those files once they have outlived their lifecycle will impact data protection and security. Risks are on the rise with insider threats to security increasing, yet less than half of companies lock up confidential documents prior to destruction. Documents to keep include:
- Financial Records
- Business contracts
- Formal Company documents
- Personnel files
- Accounting Records
- Sales Documents
- Insurance Documents
What to shred?
Any document that has passed its minimum retention period can be of risk to a data breach and of non-compliance. Any documents that include names, addresses, and any other private information should be securely destroyed.
How Shredall SDS Group can help?
We recommend ending your financial year with a large clear out. Review the amount of paper and files you have in your office and use our tips above to decide whether you need to keep or destroy the information.
Our confidential shredding and recycling services are an efficient way of dealing with your business’s confidential data, it is a secure, cost-effective way to safely destroy confidential waste. We provide both on-site and off-site shredding and we issue a certificate of destruction once your paper has been shredded.
Scheduling a confidential document clear out with a qualified document security expert will:
- Securely destroy all outdated files and reduce data breach risks
- Clear storage areas to free up valuable office space
- Boost environmental sustainability by recycling paper after shredding
We also offer both Document Scanning and Box Storage services. If you need to release space in your office, we can either store Documents Digitally or we can store the physical files in our storage facilities, both services offer secure, fast, easy retrieval and access to important records.
If you have any questions about our services or the best way to prepare for the new financial year contact us: 03333 555 100 and info@shredall.co.uk
