Time Shred Service will help you implement an Information Destruction Program that is effective and will meet regulatory compliance requirements.
Implementing an information destruction program in your company is essential and is required by federal and state privacy laws. Every data protection regulation in the United States requires that businesses of all kinds train employees to protect the private information on paper records of individuals, clients and employees even when the documents are no longer needed.
The laws mandate that you have a written Information Destruction Policy that every employee is trained on and you must have signed verification that they have received a copy of the policy and received the required training. It goes further to require that every employee have an annual policy refresher and be retrained if there have been any changes in the document shredding policy.
The State Attorneys Generals have been given the responsibility to enforce this requirement. At any time a state officer may walk into your office and ask to see your written document destruction policy and the signed employee verifications of training. If you are not compliant you could face penalties and fines.
According to government figures, organizations that properly train employees to protect private information will not be fully responsible if an employee acts defies the document shredding policy they have been trained on. The only time an organization will be responsible for any violation of a regulation is when they cannot establish they have provided the proper policy training.
Privacy laws have made training a legal requirement because it works. Employees who have been trained understand the importance of protecting private information and the necessity to comply with the firm’s destruction policy and procedures.
Time Shred has made The Employee Information Destruction Training Program simple and not time consuming. Because we have made it simple it in no way takes away from its’ effectiveness or compliance value. It is a four step process;
Step 1: Employees watch a 14 minute video on Information Destruction. The video will explain why proper security and shredding is critical to the organization and one of the requirements for their continued employment.
Step 2: Provide all employees with written instructions on the organization’s specific information destruction procedures. As your shredding vendor, we will be glad to provide you with a sample short document that you can use or you can create your own. We suggest that you have your attorney review and approve the document.
Step 3: Employees verify that they have viewed the training video, understand the written destruction instructions, and agree that ongoing compliance is a condition of their employment.
Step 4: Establish a follow up system that reminds management of the annual employee refresher training. This also requires written verification by employees.
Having a document shredding policy in place with employee training and a shred-all policy will virtually eliminate the chance of a potentially devastating security breach or violation of any privacy laws. Employees no longer have to waste time with reviewing documents to decide if they should or should not be shredded. All employees have to know is that any document that in no longer needed is going to be securely stored and then shredded.
Give Time Shred a call today to having an effective and compliant Information Destruction Program in place right away.