The Best Paper Shredding Services in Cook County, IL

Protecting Client Information and Your Business

Security breaches with personally identifiable information are a big enough issue that the government maintains industry specific regulations to protect health, education and financial information. Certified shredding services in Chicago, Cicero, Arlington Heights, Evanston and Schaumburg are the primary driving force in helping companies comply with the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003 (also known as FACTA). This act covers a range of areas to protect customers making everyday transactions by placing limits on information sharing, adding more privacy and an updated version of consumer rights.

If you ever collect personal information such as date of birth, social security numbers or fingerprint and eye scan biometrics, it is crucial that your company operates with the utmost security to protect yourself from lawsuits. To handle reduce the likelihood of data breaches, it is important that all businesses follow five key principles.

• Take Stock - Always know what personal information you have written in files and stored on your computer.
• Scale Down - Keep only the minimum amount of information that you need and shred or destroy the rest.
• Lock It - Protect the information that you keep by using manual locks and dedicated bins for document disposal.
• Pitch It - With a certified shredding service in Chicago schedule regular service and maintain consistency so your employees stick to the routine.
• Plan Ahead - Come up with a viable document shredding and disposal plan that addresses educating your employees on the importance of proper handling, use of the dedicated paper shredding bins, and how to differentiate different insecure from secure documents.

Medical Records Shredding in Chicago, IL

Healthcare practices churn out plenty of patient paperwork making medical records shredding in Chicago the biggest industry by volume in shredding. ITRC Breach Reports show that 48% of all reported data breaches occurred in the medical industry. Both HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act) regulates privacy and security protections and your legal liability to manage this information properly. With initial fines as high as $250,000 for neglecting to comply, you need a shredding partner that knows the ins and outs of these rules.

Financial Document Shredding in Chicago, Cicero and Arlington Heights

There is plenty of incentive for thieves to try to gain access to bank account numbers and any other personally identifiable information putting banks and financial institutions at high-risk of data breaches. The GLBA (Gramm-Leach Bliley Act) governs the handling of financial documents and demands that employees be educated on proper document destruction and your company has a written policy for records management and disposal. Full service paper shredding services in Chicago include help establishing your companies policies to meet GLBA criteria and ongoing education.

Standards For Education Records Destruction & Management

Education and non-profit organizations hold documents for several years with vital, highly sensitive information on students and clients. Regulations set forth by both FACTA and FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) require all educational and non-profit organizations to protect the confidential information collected. Chicago shredding services that destroy all trail forms can help schools be comply with regulations and avoid fines that reach $1,000 per student.

Offsite vs. On-site Shredding Services; What You Need To Know

With two general types of shredding service, on-site and offsite, determining which is best for your business will come down to finding a balance of low cost, high level of security and often logistics issues for companies with many locations or in locations far from the center of Cook County.

With offsite shredding in Chicago all of your documents are picked up on a regular schedule and taken to a shredding facility to be shredded. Customers receive a certificate of destruction and most offsite shredding providers are bonded and insured for your protection. Off site shredding service is slightly less expensive and more environmentally friendly as more of the paper is able to be recycled. The problem with offsite shredding is that there is higher risk of liability due to the chain of custody being severed. In other words, there are just more potential points of failure when multiple employees are handing off the documents multiple times before they are destroyed.

On-site paper shredding in Chicago significantly reduces the risks involved with transporting important documents from one location to the next by having mobile shredding trucks do the work at your business. You can witness documents being shredded first-hand and there are much fewer hand offs between employees on average.

Taking Reasonable Measures for Security

Companies that use sensitive consumer data on a daily basis should take the appropriate steps in order to keep themselves and their customers safe from fraud and identity theft. Providing their employees with ongoing education and training on how to properly handle sensitive documents both in paper format and data stored on the computer is an important step in the right direction. Procedures for disposing of sensitive data should be documented in a company manual and placed in an area where it may be accessed at all times.

Making sure that you maintain a consistent, ongoing schedule for paper shredding and document destruction can also help to cut down on the risk of fraud and data breaches. For most companies a monthly schedule for cleaning out computer data and setting up paper shredding services will greatly decrease the risk.

Questions to Ask Shredding Companies in Chicago, Cicero, Arlington Heights and Evanston

Finding a reliable provider is vital for your company's security, privacy and reputation. By asking the right questions you can see if they are a good fit for your company and your client's information will be kept safe and secure at all times.

Integrated Document Handling Solutions for Businesses with Sensitive Customer Data

A comprehensive, high level approach to document handling services will help large companies handling lots of customer data. Much more than a shredding service, this entails management of document flow throughout the entire life cycle from creation to storage to destruction and applies to paper, hard storage and even cloud based data handling. Implementing an integrated document handling program will reduce the danger of data leaks by holding employees accountable for every step in the process.

Data and Records Management in Chicago

Data and records management services in Cook County help archive documents digitally and allow easy retrieval that keeps you compliant with regulations and minimizes chances for litigation. A secure backup of all your company’s important data files protects against crashes and breaches and provides a way for management to oversee data storage.

Document Imaging in Cook County

How much time do your employees waste tracking down business records, contracts and documents? Scanning and document imaging services in Chicago make it easy to access these documents anytime from any computer. To transition to documents to electronic form, most shredding company will pick up and securely transport documents to be scanned in a facility and then store or shred the documents for you.

Document Storage Services

Do you need a way to store thousands of documents but don’t have the space? Many shredding companies offer document storage in Chicago to safely store boxes of records inside a secure environment. Document retrieval services available that go along with this service. In most cases, the shredding company will pick up and transport the documents that need to be stored and catalog the records so that they will be neat and organized when you need them.

Having a one-stop solution for all your document shredding and storage needs is ideal for many companies in today’s hectic business environment. To guarantee that your business, employees and customers will remain safe and secure from identity theft and security breaches, you should consider hiring a reliable paper shredding provider and take advantage of the many document destroying solutions they have to offer.

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