MEDIA RELEASE
For Immediate Release
SELECTSHRED OFFERS TIPS
TO AVOID IDENTITY THEFT, FINES AND PENALTIES
OVER IMPROPER DESTRUCTION AND DISPOSAL OF CONFIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS
STUART, Florida/October 22, 2013 – The experts at SelectShred, Inc., a locally owned and operated company that provides secure on-site document shredding and on-site hard drive destruction service throughout Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, and Okeechobee Counties, say this is the time of the year to reassess your compliance with a variety of regulations on document security. Especially if your business is in or related to healthcare, government operations, and financial services, or if your business uses consumer credit information.
“Today, everyone is aware of the significant impact identity theft can have on personal finances. However, with changing laws and regulations related to identity theft, many businesses are not aware of their liability should they be connected, even inadvertently, to identity theft,” said Richard Kinkead, co-founder, SelectShred, Inc. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, identity theft has become the world’s fastest-growing crime.
Three major laws and the liabilities of identity theft are forcing a number of businesses to reassess the way they handle and discard sensitive documents. The penalties associated with violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) are significant and affect a wide range of business practices.
“Lawyers, banks and financial services, all health care providers and, in some cases, even the vendors who service those types of businesses, face liability costs, civil fines, and monetary penalties. For example, HIPAA penalties can be $100 per violation and up to an annual maximum of $1.5 million,” added Kinkead. “Criminal penalties are also possible up to $50,000 and one year in prison for obtaining or disclosing protected health information. That includes a practice, business, or business owner who simply tosses whole records or reconstructable shredded records into a trash bin or a recycling bin,” noted Kinkead.
SelectShred offers the following tips to make sure your business is not setting up a scenario for fines and imprisonment for failing to properly destroy sensitive documents and media, including computer hard drives and copier hard drives.
Always use a National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) AAA Certified on-site/mobile shredding service and shred the following:
- All accounting and financial documentation
- All customer support documentation
- All human resource documentation
- All sales and marketing documentation
- All operations and technical support documentation
- Any material that includes your company name or customer information
- All correspondence such as memos, letters, business cards, credit card information
- All e-mails and fax correspondence
- Reports, records, files, studies, analyses, bids, budgets, forecasts, blueprints, associated files and records, support and training material, diskettes, videotapes, CDs, microfiche, transparencies, photos, carbon paper, etc.
- Proprietary business information.
Remember, if your business is a hospital or medical practice, protected health information (PHI) should be shredded. This includes:
- IV bag label with patient’s name and name of drug
- Daily patient lists maintained by floor nurses
- Drug vials and prescriptions
- Databases used in research labs
- Billing information
- Registration records
- Lab reports
- EKGs, EEGs, and other medical device printouts
- MRI and Radiology film and/digital prints
- Ultrasound reports
“It is important that business owners and managers know recycling documents is not secure document destruction because the ‘chain of custody’ is broken. You cannot guarantee what leaves your business for recycling is actually destroyed. Shred onsite first – then recycle,” said Kinkead.
SelectShred’s professional onsite shredding approach ensures that documents are destroyed before leaving the client’s site. This eliminates the potential liability for those documents as well as the need to further monitor discarded confidential information. Most document security experts suggest that companies that use haul-away shredding services – including recycling companies – face increased risk and liability.
“Even self-shredding (the practice of using office shredders) cannot produce the same level of security as professional on-site document destruction. Also, supporting documentation is critical for demonstrating best business practices and for showing that reasonable measures were taken should a company experience an alleged information security breach in the future and face penalties, fines, or prosecution” concluded Kinkead.
For a free analysis of your information breach liability and to identify red flags, contact SelectShred, Inc. today. SelectShred, Inc. is a locally owned and operated company that provides secure on-site document shredding and on-site hard drive destruction service throughout Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, and Okeechobee Counties. SelectShred staff is committed to providing quality mobile document destruction service and superb customer service. SelectShred issues a Certificate of Destruction for your compliance records following every service. This certificate documents that you have a compliant and secure document destruction program in place.
SelectShred can provide assistance in reviewing and preparing written document destruction policies and procedures, as well as assist in staff training for your secure document destruction program. For more information call (772) 463-3166 or visit the SelectShred website at www.SelectShred.com. SelectShred – Protecting People and Preserving the Environment.
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