The Shredder: Securing Data?
Written by Gloria Metrick on . Published as written. It may not reflect how these systems work today.
During my recent office move, my shredder broke. Today, I’m off to buy a new one, as I do now have a small stack of documents to shred. In the June issue of Lab Manager Magazine, I wrote an article about “Securing Data” (http://www.labmanager.com/articles.asp?ID=597 ) and I was just thinking how the shredder fits into a secure data strategy for some customers.
Some people think it’s silly to shred their customer’s data. However, I’ve been through enough projects to know that the customers that require their documents be shredded (rather than put directly into the paper recycling bin) do not think it to be silly.
By the way, I don’t happen to be particularly paranoid. I doubt that industrial spies are lurking behind my bushes. Wait, let me check…nope, no sign of lurking going on outside my window And my recycling bin is fairly secure sitting in my garage all week. On recycling day, it’s sitting in a place where it would be impossible to paw through it without attracting attention or without pretending to be the recycling truck and taking the whole bin-ful.
On top of that, it’s extremely unlikely industrial spies would care about the low level of information my bin has to offer. But as they say in the training sessions customers give on this topic, “Why take a chance?” And as customers also like to point out, if it’s important to them, why not just do it?
And so, I’m off to buy a new shredder so I can rid myself of this small pile of documents hanging around my “to be shredded” pile. But my customers already suspect I’m not entirely doing this out of a sense of duty, but also because…well…because I really enjoy playing around with the shredder. :-)
Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/