Shredding important documents is practically muscle memory for business owners and employees at this point. Unless someone is careless or uneducated about data security risks, everyone in your organization is probably good about putting sensitive documents into locked containers for secure shredding rather than in open recycling bins or trash cans. From small offices to huge grocery stores and warehouses, it’s standard for businesses to have well-established procedures for document shredding.
What about materials shredding? It’s a fundamental part of a good data security plan, but unlike document shredding, not every business does it. Partnering with a shredding service to dispose of hard drives, payment cards, off-spec products and other non-paper materials helps your business protect its data, its reputation and its intellectual property. Shredding can also be the easiest and most sustainable way to dispose of these materials.
Nearly all businesses can use materials shredding services at some point, most commonly when they get rid of old computers and need to destroy old hard drives. But some businesses have a more urgent, ongoing need for shredding services than others. If your company falls into one of these categories, make sure you have a relationship with a shredding service that processes physical materials as well as documents.
3 Top Businesses That Can Benefit from Materials Shredding
Restaurant and bar chains
Any business that sells food and/or drink should have procedures in place for disposing of materials, including hard drives and payment cards. Not only do restaurant/bar computers have hard drives filled with business and customer data, but POS systems and security camera systems may also use hard drives to store sensitive information. Shredding these drives once they become obsolete is the only way to guarantee that no one can retrieve any data from them.
Restaurants and bars chains also need a secure procedure for disposing of payment cards and access cards. If you use a POS system with access cards, or use access cards for employee-only areas, those cards should be destroyed once they’re no longer needed. Unused gift cards can also be shredded. Even if they’re not activated and have no monetary value, thieves have ways to scam people using empty gift cards. You definitely don’t want your branded gift cards sold fraudulently.
What does your restaurant or bar chain do when customers don’t come back for a forgotten credit card? Bar staff might call the credit card company to report the loss first or simply destroy cards after a set number of days; either way, an abandoned payment card should always be shredded once it’s clear the customer isn’t coming back for it.
Retail Franchises
If your business sells physical products of any kind, you need materials shredding services. Like restaurants and bars, retail stores have computers, POS systems and surveillance systems that use hard drives. These drives can hold a treasure trove of sensitive customer and business data.
Retailers with branded items can also use shredding to dispose of unsold or off-spec merchandise. Take a clothing store for example. If a shipment of garments arrives and the pieces are too damaged to sell, shipping everything back to the manufacturer might not be feasible. But the store can’t just toss all those garments into a dumpster. Here in Massachusetts, that would violate the new textile ban, plus it creates a risk that someone could recover and resell them without your permission. Having a shredding service destroy unsold or off-spec materials keeps them out of the black market.
Healthcare-adjacent businesses
Healthcare entities that are covered by HIPAA (like healthcare providers and health plan companies) should already have established data destruction procedures for shredding documents and other materials like X-rays, audio tapes and hard drives. There are also thousands of businesses that work adjacent to the healthcare field without being subject to HIPAA’s requirements, and these businesses might not realize that secure materials shredding is important for them too.
If your company does any kind of work with medical supplies, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, home health services, healthcare IT or otherwise touches the healthcare industry, you are strongly advised to use shredding services for disposing of drives and other data-storing materials. Everyone is concerned about data security and data privacy these days, but healthcare privacy is an especially hot-button issue. Businesses that work with healthcare in any way need to adopt strict standards for secure data disposal if they want to be seen as trusted and reputable in such a data-risky industry.
Need Help with Materials Shredding?
Northeast Data Destruction makes materials shredding easy for businesses of all kinds. We can pick up your old hard drives, payment cards and other materials (along with your sensitive documents) and transport them to our NAID “AAA” certified facility for secure shredding. Want to learn more about our shredding services? I’m happy to answer any questions. Contact me today.