3 Top Tips for Protecting and Preserving Important Business Records

These days, businesses of all sizes face a huge responsibility to their customers and employees: the legal obligation to protect and preserve their personal, medical and financial information. Here are three top tips for protecting and preserving your important business records:

Tip 1: Shred outdated documents

Are you hoarding outdated documents? Unfortunately, what seems like a good idea can actually create unnecessary privacy breach risks for your business.

Though they are old and outdated, expired documents might still contain sensitive financial and personal information. If that information is stolen and misused, it can create big legal and financial problems for your company. The longer you wait to destroy old, outdated documents, the more risk you assume for your customers, employees and business. Instead, invest in a scheduled shredding service to make sure expired and out-of-date paper records never fall into the wrong hands. 

Tip 2: Archive offsite

Every business has paper records with required retention periods of up to several years. Paper documents are especially prone to damage from fires, floods, and natural disasters. Additionally, if not stored under the right conditions, they eventually succumb to mold, mildew and pest infestation. As if those concerns weren’t enough, if your records of a confidential nature, they are also at risk of being stolen.

Disaster recovery and data security experts recommend archiving paper records offsite. Choose a commercial records center that meets National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) and State of California Department of Public Health (CDPH) standards. This type of facility is designed with advanced climate control, security and fire suppression systems designed to protect and preserve your documents long term. 

Tip 3: Destroy obsolete electronic devices

A recent study by the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) found that 40 percent of used electronic devices sold on the secondhand market contained personally identifiable information (PII). If you have old, obsolete backup tapes, hard drives and computers—destroy them. It’s simply not enough to erase the data from these devices because sensitive information can still be recovered from them unless they are physically destroyed.

With a NAID AAA Certified hard drive shredding service, your tapes and hard drives are shredded into tiny pieces, rendering the digital data unreadable. The destroyed devices are then separated into component parts and recycled according to EPA regulations.

Implementing these tips will help you protect and preserve your business information well into the future.

Pacific Records Management provides document storage and shred services for businesses throughout Fresno, Stockton, Sacramento, Modesto, and Napa and Solano Counties.