Are Businesses Obligated To Conceal Customers’ And Employees’ Information?

Protecting private customer and employee information is a critical aspect of running a modern business. Regardless of the size of your organization, you cannot risk having sensitive details about your clients or your employees get out to the public. A single security breach can compromise years of hard earned, good reputation. The last thing that you want is to have customers or employees going elsewhere because they can no longer trust you. Take the necessary precautions so that everyone’s information stays safe.

Gaining Trust

You cannot assume that employees and customers know how you handle your data. Put together a privacy policy for your company and make it readily available to both employees and the general public. Consider posting it on your company website so that potential customers know what type of information you collect and how you use it. Once you have a privacy policy in place, take the proper steps to follow through with it.

Adhering To Legal Requirements

While protecting sensitive information is critical for every modern business, there are certain types of industries that must keep large amounts of highly sensitive information in their databases at all times. These industries include, but are not limited to, medical, legal, financial and manufacturing companies. Hospitals, private medical practices, CPAs, banks, and law offices may be up against liability with clients if their data gets into the wrong hands. Stay up to date on the state requirements and other legal guidelines for your given industry.

Taking Care Of Sensitive Information Properly

The most effective way to protect sensitive customer and employee documents is to destroy them in full. Set up in-house, cross-cut or micro-cut shredders, or hire a service for paper shredding in Amarillo. Make sure that you have the capacity to shred the quantity of paper documents that your business handles on a regular basis. You also want to dispose of the remains the right way so that there is no chance that something could happen with the shredded pieces.

Don’t forget about destroying hard drives and other digital data as well. It is not enough to wipe a hard drive, external drive or rewritable DVD. To be completely protected, you must destroy the device itself. If you don’t have the ability to do this kind of destruction in-house, hire a reputable business.

UCI is a full-service copier company that serves the Texas Panhandle region. We offer a range of services for businesses of all sizes, including paper shredding and hard drive shredding In Amarillo and Lubbock. To learn more about how we can help you keep sensitive company information safe, contact us today.