What to Shred? A Guide to Keeping Your Information Safe

Having a high quality, on-site paper shredder atemployees, should, of course be treated with the
your home or office is the only way to makeutmost care. Make sure that you shred such
sure that your confidential documents arethings as: account statements, bank statements,
properly and safely disposed of. But what kind ofany bills that you don't need to keep around for
documents need to be shredded? Well, we say:tax reasons, budget statements, canceled checks
"When in doubt, shred it," but if you need morenot needed for taxes, credit card statements,
information, here's a guide to the kinds ofinvoices, loan contracts, and sale forecasts.
documents that should be put through the5. Legal Info. You never know what might happen
shredder when no longer needed.if information regarding claims being made against
1. General. Any documents that contain even youryou, or that you are making, should get into the
address and phone number should be shredded,hands of a competitor. The same is obviously
including old bills, insurance papers, andtrue for any proprietary patent or research
pre-addressed envelopes. If you have anyinformation. To keep any such information safe,
maintenance records that are no longer applicable,you should be sure to shred the following when
they should be shredded as well, as shouldyou no longer need them: papers pertaining to
anything that has your signature on it, or ofclaims, confidentiality agreements, old expired
course, your social security number.contracts, patent and trademark papers that
2. Customer Info. It is important to note that withwere not filed, research request forms for
the advent of the FACTA laws, you or yourpatents and trademarks, and disputes or studies
business could be sued if it can be proven thatrelated to patents, settlements and severance
information improperly discarded by you was usedagreements, engineering specs, prototype
in the commission of identity theft or consumerdocuments and specs, research and testing plans
fraud. To protect yourself and your customers,and results, design and product information, and
you should be sure to shred the followingany documents that contain information about
documents when you are discarding them:trade secrets.
account numbers, credit histories, customer lists6. Strategic Info. You should take special care to
and data, and purchase orders that may containmake sure that when you are having meetings
credit card numbers or tax ID numbers.regarding future plans, that any documentation
3. Employee Info. When your HR department ispertaining to these plans be properly disposed of
discarding employee-related documents, makevia a shredder. This includes: competitive
sure that the following are shredded: benefitsdocumentation, future marketing objectives and
package information, papers regarding firings andplans, spreadsheets that contain you operating
other discharges or pre-employment backgroundexpenses, pricing information and structure, your
checks, documents relating to medical and dentalcompany's sales goals, and any other strategic
plans and treatments, organizational charts, papersplans.
relating to promotions and merit raises, any7. Travel Info. If your competition knows where
records relating to contracts, and employee 401kyou've been, they could beat you there next
information that is no longer relevant to yourtime. Always shred: expired passports and visas,
company.used plane tickets, old itineraries, luggage tags, and
4. Financial Info. The financial information of yourcell phone bills.
business as well as that of your customers and