Protecting Confidential Information
September 2, 2022
Shredding your personal identifying information, like old tax forms (over 7 years old) or medical forms is beneficial to protecting your identity. Businesses also have records and confidential information that needs to be shred after so long in order to protect its customers/members. What are you holding on to that should be shred?
Protecting Your Documents
Document shredding is considered one of the most effective methods for protecting your sensitive documents from theft. With shredding paperwork with personal information on it, you make it much more difficult for someone to steal and misuse that material. Security threats have been on a constant rise and protecting yourself in this manner is important. If shredding isn’t an option at the time, secure and lockable bins or filing cabinets are great ways to protect this type of documentation.
Why Document Shredding Is Important:
With the technological world we live in, shredding documents may not be considered a necessity, but it is still very important. Why?
Trash is considered public property. Once you ball up those papers, toss them in your trash bin, then haul it to the sidewalk, it’s considered to be public property so, in theory, anyone could sift through your bags and find sensitive information with minimal effort.
Identity theft is also tied to those paper documents. Credit card offers in the mail, receipts from your financial institution, and even that lost or stolen wallet could contain a lot of personal identifying information. This makes shredding “junk mail” and receipts when you’re able that much more important.
What Should I Shred
Knowing what to shred is important to keeping your identity protected, your finances secure and your family safe. If you forget to shred these documents, you’re not alone. But with the growing number of identity thefts and data breaches, it’s important to stay on top of shredding your documents. There are so many different things that would be beneficial to shred to protect your identity, but here are some common things that should be destroyed.
- Junk Mail
- Old IDs and Drivers Licenses
- Old Shipping Labels
- Old Bank Statements
- Canceled Checks
- Old Insurance Offers
- Expired Medical Insurance Cards
- Expired Debit and Credit Cards
- Receipts
- Paid Bills
How We Can Help
At least once a year, typically in September, we offer a free community shred event. In order to protect confidential information, documents are completely destroyed on-site to offer you additional peace of mind.
This year, we are holding our Free Community Shred Event at 1600 S Center St Ext. Grove City PA 16127 on Saturday, September 10 from 9am – 12 noon. Though it isn’t required to shred your personal documentation, we will be collecting non-perishable food items, personal hygiene products, and monetary donations for the Grove City Community Food Pantry during that time.