It’s important to keep the places we spend the bulk of our time both tidy and safe, so we feel good and stay secure. Living and working in an orderly environment has been linked to better cognitive performance and on a basic level, your mood simply improves.
Today, there’s a lot of concern about security in the digital world, but ensuring that your home and office are organized, neat, and free of data vulnerabilities is an important step in protecting your overall business and personal liability. Read on to learn how industry-leading professional shredders like those found at Absolutedestruction.ca can help keep your home and office neat, tidy, and secure.
Less at Home
It’s trendy now to reduce the clutter at home, for which there could be several explanations. Maybe people are living in smaller homes and there is simply less space available for storage. Perhaps cultural figures like “tidying guru” Marie Kondo are impacting how people around the world live.
Whatever the reason, the goals of minimalism and neatness at home align nicely with the need to reduce data liabilities. It’s not uncommon for people’s homes to contain paper documents or electronics storing sensitive personal information — if they aren’t being used, the safest course is to have them destroyed.
Despite the image of shredding portrayed by some Hollywood movies, every single citizen has a need to shred paper documents, as they accumulate private and sensitive papers which they need to keep from falling into the wrong hands. The documents could be storing banking information, social insurance numbers, tax forms, or any other kind of data that an identity thief could use for nefarious purposes.
Are you storing a load of Bankers Boxes in your basement containing sensitive financial information in case you need them one day, but decades later they’ve done nothing but collect dust? Shredding such documents can free up space immediately, and you’ll enjoy the reduced clutter. But it’s also a vital way to pre-emptively prevent data thieves from obtaining your private data.
Shred Right from Home
The best professionals in the industry offer mobile shredding services, where a special truck pulls up to your location and shreds your documents right there at the curb. This way, you’ll never have to worry about straining a muscle lifting heavy boxes or deal with the anxiety of transporting documents containing such sensitive information.
For people who need a great purge of paper, professional shredders will still come to their location, but they’ll transport the sensitive documents in their truck to their own facility for secure shredding. Either way, eliminating sensitive documents is extremely easy and convenient.
Whether your home contains sensitive records about your personal life or finances, or you have a home office loaded with sensitive business documents, call in professional shredders to keep your home secure and tidy. You may free up valuable space to put to practical use, and just reducing the clutter from each room will give the space better energy.
Commercial Shredding
Commercial environments have different needs than home shredding, but today’s professional shredders meet these needs with services that are just as convenient. There tend to be greater volumes of sensitive information inside an office, and it may take multiple forms.
Here’s a short, non-exhaustive list of common types of sensitive documents found in offices:
- HR information
- Old business plans
- Old contracts
- Employee contact info
- Proprietary data
If a rival were to get their hands on this type of information, they could perhaps use it to drain your bank account, or for blackmail, or to undermine your future business plans. The safest course of action is to have professionals shred it conveniently, quickly, and securely.
Commercial shredding can be handled by a mobile shredding truck at your facility for smaller volumes, or the company will haul your documents to their location. Check to see if the company you engage has options for a one-time pickup, or if you can schedule pickups at regular intervals.
Electronic Destruction
Today’s pro shredders dispose of sensitive information no matter what form it takes, and given modern technology, that often means electronic devices. Some office equipment is immediately associated with data storage, such as computers, tablets, laptops, and smartphones.
The best pro shredders destroy the microchips on all these devices, so the information that was on them is impossible to retrieve. In addition to these devices, there may be sensitive data stored on other electronics too.
From photocopier or printer memory cards to any other electronic device, the best pro shredders securely destroy information in every form it takes.
Specialty Destruction
Finally, sensitive information sometimes is stored in unorthodox ways that are unique to certain industries. Legal or medical professionals may have extra obligations to ensure client info remains confidential.
Some items on the list may not come to mind right away, but it’s essential to be able to shred them all:
- Uniform with logos
- Clothing or t-shirts
- Any type of labeling or packaging
- Cosmetic or pharmaceutical packaging
- Food production packages
- X-rays or dental molds
- Promotion items
- Top brands
- ID cards
- Access cards
If your business rivals get their hands on your sensitive information, it doesn’t matter whether they obtained it from a paper document, electronic device, or from some other way. Either they know these secrets or they don’t. That’s why today’s best professional shredders can destroy sensitive info in any form.
The data liabilities around your home or office may not seem like an immediate threat, but if rivals were to obtain this sensitive information, they could cause real harm to your finances, business, and reputation. It’d likely be too late to stop them by the time you heard about the breach. Plus, there is simply no reason to clog up space in your home or office with sensitive data.
Call today’s professional shredders to reduce the clutter where you live and work. There’s no better way to stop identity theft from occurring before it causes havoc, while simultaneously improving the dynamics of the spaces where you spend the most time.
