As the world continues to evolve where technology is concerned, companies can never be too careful when it comes to protecting information. It seems that at least once a week there’s a major news story about a major company experiencing a data breach where the personal data of thousands, if not millions of customers is exposed and vulnerable. In fact, it’s estimated that about one in 15 people is now a victim of identity theft; in 2017 that number was more than 16 million.


With companies on constant alert for cybercrime, it’s imperative that companies do all they can to protect their customers’ personal information. By taking the following steps, companies can protect themselves as well as their customers.

• Destroy data: The law actually requires companies to destroy sensitive information and documents when they’re done with them. An easy way to do that is with a secure paper shredder or a high capacity paper shredder, which will turn documents into shreds that can be easily discarded. With secure paper shredders, companies can easily go through high volumes of documents and do it fast. This keeps them from hanging on to sensitive information too long.
  Nothing gives customers the chills faster than hearing that their personal information may have been compromised. Thankfully with secure paper shredders, companies can help their customers feel more secure about sharing personal information, since they know it will be destroyed quickly and in a proper way. Bottom line: with secure paper shredders, customers can maintain their trust in companies.
• Focus on customer privacy: Companies can never be too careful when it comes to protecting their customers. So when it comes to customer information, everybody from the top down should know how to protect it. That doesn’t mean a company CEO has to share highly sensitive information with everyone, but every employee should make information protection a top priority. If nothing else, companies should take time to review their policies about customer privacy.
• Focus on the essentials: It’s never been easy than right now for companies to collect whatever information they want from a willing customer. Think about how fast customers download apps to their phones that collect all kinds of personal information. That being said, a company can do itself a favor and focus on what information it needs the most. This helps save time and resources and it’s another way to give customers peace of mind that companies aren’t holding their information for personal gain.
• Limit access: It doesn’t matter whether a company is big or small, when it comes to sensitive information and dealing with it there’s a good chance that not everyone needs to see it. By limiting access to only the most important folks, this helps limit chances for information to be stolen or for hackers to find a weak spot in your company’s databases and wreak havoc.
• Study: These days, companies can never do too much to educate themselves on how to better protect customer data. That education may include finding better ways to keep sensitive data encrypted and to use technology that prevent hackers from waltzing into a database and taking whatever they want.
• Make the customer comfortable: Once again, it must be stated that protecting customer privacy should be the ultimate goal of companies that work in data collection. Think about what kinds of information a customer gives to companies—their address, phone number, social security number and maybe even bank routing numbers—that information is among the personal of information to every individual and they want to know it’s safe when they give it over. The best thing a company can do is be upfront about what information they need, why they need it and then destroy it.

By using tools like secure paper shredders and commercial paper shredders and by collecting only the most vital of information, companies can do a lot to protect themselves and to protect customer information. Customers need to be able to trust companies and companies who use information and then dispose of it properly can do a lot to keep and strengthen the trust their companies have in them.