Personal document shredding is just as important as business shredding, as fraudsters love to target individuals!
Many businesses use a professional shredding service to destroy their obsolete documents and protect their clients, staff and company’s reputation. It is equally important for individuals to engage in personal document shredding, to protect themselves and their families.
Personal document shredding protects your identity and loved ones from those who would use your personal data for nefarious purposes. Whether it be selling your number to a call service that would see you harassed with phone calls, or taking those precious family photos and passing them off as their own. Criminals can legally sort through your trash if it’s just sitting on the sidewalk waiting to be picked up.
Personal document shredding will ensure that if thieves ever go through the bin they’ll find nothing but garbage and walk away empty handed.
Shredding personal documents with a professional is more secure than doing it yourself. With advances in technology, thieves can restore the majority of information from paper shredded in a standard way. Secure document shredding services provide secure bins that ensure no one can tamper with the documents and ensure that the data is indecipherable after shredding.
Commercially destroyed paper can also be easily recycled, while paper recycled with a personal shredder at home is difficult. Professional shredders prepare and shred it specifically for recycling purposes. Using a shredding service can also save time – which we’d all love more of!
Document shredding is quickly becoming a key component in protecting privacy and when deciding what needs to be shredded, a rule of thumb is that you can destroy documents that are more than five years old unless you require them for financial reasons or historical records. Documents that need to be shredded are generally anything that has an address, bank details, name, license plate; bank statements, stock reports, ATM receipts or anything with information about your finances, BSB or an address.
This information is readily used by crafty identity thieves to open accounts in your name and other potentially dangerous scenarios. Personal document shredding helps to prevent this. Some paper shredding services can also dispose of forms of digital media like laptops, DVDs, CDs, hard drives, tapes and even old uniforms, reducing them to indecipherable mounds of refuse.
Personal document shredding is a crucial safeguard in protecting individuals from identity theft and other issues resulting from data breaches, which is why it’s important to go to a professional shredding service who will ensure the data stays out of the wrong hands.
If you are looking to shred your personal documents and media, iShred can help. Contact us today to find out more, or follow us on Facebook to find out about upcoming Community Shredding Days.
