Niche Focus: Shredding Companies

"You tell me over and over and over again my friend, ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction."...lyrics from the worst rock-and-roll song ever, Barry McGuire's Eve of Destruction

Last year, 9.3 million consumers were victims of identity theft. The cost to U.S. businesses and consumers exceeds $50 billion annually. Interestingly, most identity theft is not of the 'hacking into the LexisNexis database' variety. It is rather low tech, e.g. dumpster diving.

In an effort to reverse this trend, federal rules have been enacted regarding disposal of documents containing personal information. Beginning today, June 1st, anyone who maintains or otherwise possesses consumer information derived from consumer reports for a business purpose...must properly dispose of any such information. The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act is intended to reduce the risk of consumer fraud by improper disposal of personal documents.

As you might expect, this federal law has been a boon to shredding companies. In a recent survey by the National Association of Information Destruction (NAID), the average annual growth rate for document destruction companies over the past four years...has exceeded 27%. Already on the books is the Health Insurance Privacy and Accountability Act, which governs companies that handle medical records. The new law covers any business who use documents with personal information...from families with nannies or gardeners, to companies that dispose of tons of records monthly.

For a list of companies that specialize in information destruction, the best source is the NAID. Their website, www.naidonline.org, has a directory of member companies in your region.

The NAID website also has a list of, what they term, "interesting facts":

1. Every business has information that requires destruction.
2. Stored records should be destroyed on a regular schedule.
3. Incidental business records discarded on a daily basis should be protected.
4. Recycling is not an adequate alternative.
5. A Certificate of Destruction does not relieve a company from its obligation to keep information confidential.
6. Most record storage companies do not provide shredding services.
7. Internal personnel should not be responsible to destroy certain information.
8. Information protection is a vital issue to senior management.

Ciao!