Identity theft is a horrific, expensive crime. According to the Identity Theft.info website, almost 15 million residents per year in the United States alone have had their identities used for fraudulent purposes. This has cost 7 percent of United States citizens about $3,500 in losses each year–which includes legal fees spent towards restoring their true identities. However, not only is the act of using someone’s name and identity a concern–but also the reading of sensitive information on others by individuals without a “need to know.”

 

What Lawmakers Have Done

Lawmakers have responded to this problem by enacting legislation to reduce the likelihood of identity theft, if not eliminate it altogether. In Texas, for example, the Texas Information Destruction Law, also known as Identity Theft Enforcement Act has been passed. Section 521.052 says that a business must destroy personal information by shredding, erasing or any other act that would make it totally unreadable to anyone outside the agency with a need to know. This would include information on students at a university–including grades–protected by the Privacy Act of 1974, as well as information on a patient who visited a health clinic or hospital. For making sure customers’ credit reports do not fall into the wrong hands, there are FACTA laws.

Indeed, failure to comply with these rules can have devastating legal consequences for your business–whether it’s a small or large one. You can be sued by former customers, and have to pay staggering amounts of money. In some cases, you could even be criminally prosecuted. Thus document shredding is the only way to ensure that your customers’ personal information is utterly protected. Proshred® has the tools to accomplish this task. Do not worry about bringing your documents to the company…their trucks can personally visit you onsite. Proshred® has over 30 years of experience protecting businesses and their customers from identity theft and privacy invasion. Proshred®‘s website mentions that the company is the first on-site shredding company with secure, convenient techniques of destroying and recycling confidential information and documents.

Proshred®‘s document destruction methods do not only cover old paper documents. The company has also developed the means to destroy the hard drives of computers that you wish to replace. This is to avoid the chance that someone could repurpose a computer you have thrown away and be able to read information your clients have trusted that you would keep confidential. This, too, is illegal. The company has a variety of tools to meet your shredding and crushing needs, be they paper or computer-related.

Accreditation

According to Proshred.com, the company is the first of its kind to meet both the standards of the International Organization for Standardization and earn ISO 9001 certification as well. In other words, Proshred®‘s products have met some rigorous testing standards, and are highly respected in the document shredding compliance field.

Call to Action: What You Can Do

Call 1-832-947-5700 today for a free quote. Or you can visit us on the Web at https://www.proshred.com/houston. The sooner you do it, the better, not only for your business but also for your peace of mind.

Written by: Brock Bruce

References:

https://www.proshred.com/houston

https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/BC/htm/BC.521.htm

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/foreign-account-tax-compliance-act-fatca.

https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/index.html

https://www.justice.gov/opcl/privacy-act-1974