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Frequently Asked Questions

Internal personnel should not be responsible for destroying highly sensitive information.

• Payroll information, materials that involve labor relations, and legal affairs should not be entrusted to lower level employees for destruction.
• Competition-sensitive information is best protected from employees.
• Employees are the most likely to realize the value of certain information to competitors.
• Lower wage employees often have the economic incentive to capitalize on their access to confidential information.
• Employees are much more productive when focused on their core responsibilities.

Have you ever heard the term “dumpster diving?” Private information isn’t limited to bank statements and business contracts. Printed confidential materials are produced daily in every business and by every employee from medical records to strategic planning documents. As the fastest growing form of fraud, identity theft and corporate espionage threatens to destroy personal credit ratings as well as business reputation and security.

The period of time that business records are stored should be determined by a retention schedule that takes into consideration their useful value to the business and governing legal requirements. No records should be kept longer than this retention period. By not adhering to a program of routinely destroying stored records, a company exhibits suspicious disposal practices that could be negatively construed in the event of litigation or audit. By destroying records according to a set schedule, a company appropriately limits the amount of materials it must search through to comply with the law. From a risk management perspective, the only acceptable method of discarding stored records is to destroy them by a method that ensures that your information is obliterated. Documenting the exact date that a record is destroyed is a prudent and recommended legal procaution.