Instant Shredding, Inc | PO Box 163813 | Fort Worth | Texas | 76161
Metro 817.747.3348 (817.SHRED4U) | 817.394.0500 e-fax
Shredding Hours - Mon-Fri some Saturdays (except holidays) | Office hours 8-5 M-F
Every Business Has Information That Requires Destruction
All businesses
have occasion to discard confidential data. Customer lists, price lists, sales statistics,
drafts of bids and letters, even memos, contain information about business activity,
which would interest any competitor. Every business is also entrusted with information
that must be kept private. Employees and customers have the legal right to have
this data protected.
Without the proper safeguards, information ends up in the dumpster where it is readily
and legally available to anybody. Business espionage professionals consider the
trash the single most available source of competitive and private information from
the average business. Any establishment that discards private property data without
the benefit of destruction exposes itself to the risk of criminal and civil prosecution,
as well as the costly loss of business.
Stored Records Should Be Destroyed On a Regular Basis
The period of time that business records
are stored should be determined by a retention schedule that takes into consideration
their useful value to the business and the governing legal requirements. No record
should be kept longer than this retention period.
By not adhering to a program of routinely destroying stored records, a company exhibits
suspicious disposal practices that could be negatively construed in the event of
litigation or audit. Also, the new "Federal Rule 26" requires that, in the event
of a lawsuit, each party will provide all relevant records to the opposing counsel
within 85 days of the defendant's initial response. If either of the litigants does
not fulfill this obligation, it could result in a summary finding against them.
By destroying records according to a set schedule, a company appropriately limits
the amount of materials it must search through to comply with this law.
From a risk management perspective, the only acceptable method of discarding stored
records is to destroy them by a method that ensures that the information is obliterated.
Documenting the exact date that a record is destroyed is a recommended legal precaution.