Jeff McRitchie

The Importance of Shredding

Though document shredding is seen as your first line of defense against identity theft, there are still some people out there who may need some convincing. Here are some of the reasons you need to seriously consider getting a good document shredder today.

Do I Really Need A Shredder?

Yes. Yes you do. There is no debating the fact that identity theft is on the rise, and that those who perpetrate these crimes are both persistent and clever. When you are discarding such documents as bank statements, credit card statements, credit card offers received in the mail, and your tax, medical, and legal papers, what do you do with them? Simply throw them away? Put them in the recycling? Well, if those are your answers, you are looking for trouble. You may not know this, but it is actually legal to go through someone's trash. Meaning that any information contained on documents that you throw away without destroying is pretty much going to be easily available to every dumpster diving, would-be identity thief. Armed with your name, SSN, account numbers and signature, can you even imagine the damage one of these crooks could do?

The best, and easiest way to protect yourself is to get yourself a decent paper shredder.

I Still Don't Want A Shredder. Are There Alternatives?

Not really. Papers that have been torn up by hand are too easy to piece back together, and burning is usually an impractical solution. Then there's this: if you run a business that handles and discards documents that contain the confidential information of clients, employees and customers, you are required to shred those papers when you are getting rid of them. In 2005, the federal government passed what are known as the FACTA laws, which require you to dispose of such documents in a shredder that is rated at a Security Level of 3 or above.

What does this mean? It means that your shredder needs to destroy paper in a cross cut, rather than a strip cut pattern. Cross cut shredding will produce tiny shards of paper that will make it impossible to put the page back into a readable state, whereas strip cut shredding creates results that may not be much better than tearing by hand.

Okay, So Where Do I Begin?

There are a number of things to keep in mind when shopping for shredders, and the main one is the document security level. Once you have found a cross cut shredder, the next thing you need to consider is how many sheets you will need to be able to shred at one time, and how many sheets per day you will require you shredder to process. One way to begin to figure this out is to ask yourself how many users the shredder will see in the typical day. There are shredders that are made for personal/small office use, on up to shredders that are made to be used all day long by busy departments. This type of information should be listed by the manufacturers and retailers, along with each machine's safety features, run time, ease of use, and maintenance needs.

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