How Safe Is Your Information? 

Bank statements, pay slips, bills, registration, insurance and licence renewal forms, out of date credit cards, legal matters, health records, banking information, data stored on CD-R’s and DVD-R’s, the list goes on. What do all these have in common? They all contain personal and commercially sensitive information which we consider private. They never stop coming in either. If you are living being, you will be generating literally reams of this sort of information in your private life, and just imagine how much more is generated in business.

So how do you ensure the security of all this information, other than securing it in a vault for eternity? I asked someone this question recently, and they jokingly said – “nuke it?”. Another response was “burn it!”. Either of these answers, are, at the end of the day, correct. But unless you are lucky, (or unlucky), enough to have access to some of the tonnes of cold war era nuclear material getting around the place, or live in an area unaffected by climate change and are happy to burn everything, these methods are not a good option.

There is a safe, secure and environmentally friendly way to ensure the privacy of your confidential information is kept, and that’s shredding. Yes, the old shredder. They have been around for a long time now, and are a standard piece of equipment in most offices, and more and more private residences utilise these economical devices.

As with most products in our modern world, shredders are utilising technology to improve their efficiency, and to bring down costs. Electronics imbedded in the machines are used to reduce power used, modern materials add strength and bring down manufacturing costs, and as they become more and more popular, manufacturers invest in research and development, adding new models to their ranges, allowing anyone to find the right machine for their individual needs.

Gone are the days when only secretive government agencies use shredders. And gone are the days when the only machines available are thousands of dollars in price, and weigh a ton. Any search on the internet will bring up a wide variety of shredders, from tiny home use machines, to massive, heavy duty, industrial machines. In this day and age you can customise a shredder to the décor in your office!

So, proactively managing personal and commercially sensitive information has never been so easy. I believe everyone should use a shredder in house, as nothing is more secure than disposing of these types of documents in the confines of your own office or home. 

This image shows the risk of not using a cross cut shredder