Businesses often deal with documents in their daily operations. Private individuals also have papers accumulated through the years. Bills, forms, information sheets, and flyers are common in houses and offices worldwide.

Over time, these papers often lose their relevance and turn into junk. However, most of them could still contain private and confidential information.

Documents containing sensitive information shouldn’t just be thrown away. They require proper document destruction methods to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

However, not everyone has access to large-scale shredding equipment capable of going through massive piles of papers. In these cases, shredding events are a viable alternative.

What Is a Shredding Event?

A shredding event is often a community-wide affair where people can get their documents shredded by industrial machines. They are usually organized in parking lots or other open spaces.

These community shredding events help individuals and small organizations with data destruction needs. They are particularly helpful for those that do not have the equipment to destroy sensitive documents by themselves.

Local governments could partner with a mobile shredding company to provide the space and equipment necessary for the event. Instead of finding individual shredders or document drop-offs, entire neighbourhoods could have their papers shredded in a couple of hours.

The Benefits of Attending a Shredding Event

There are many misconceptions and myths about paper shredding, but shredding events do a lot of good. Below are some key benefits of attending a shredding event in your community.

Security

Shredding events help make a community safer from data breaches and identity thieves. They make data security accessible, even to those without access to professional shredders in their home or workplace.

These events help people get rid of documents containing the following:

• Full names
• Addresses
• Phone numbers
• Social security numbers, etc.

Convenience

Finding and booking a shredder could be difficult, especially for people with busy schedules. Getting rid of personal documents isn’t a priority for most.

A shredding event makes the document destruction process easier for everyone involved. People can drop by with their documents and finish the job in a few hours or less. They don’t need to handle any bookings or reservations. They just need to show up with what they want to shred.

Peace of Mind

According to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, 48 percent of Canadians are highly concerned about identity theft.

Secure shredding events give people control over destroying their information. They collect their documents and watch them get shredded before their eyes.  

The Dangers of Attending a Shredding Event

Community shredding events are generally safe, especially if you recognize that the organizers are trustworthy. However, it’s still important to consider the privacy and health risks you may encounter at these events.

Leaving Confidential Documents Behind

Shredding events usually allow you to leave your documents behind, especially if you have somewhere else to be. However, doing this may leave your private information at risk.

If you are particularly concerned about your documents, staying and keeping watch would be best. You can also talk to the organizers about your concerns to see what they can do to help.

COVID-19 Risks

Since these events involve the community, you can expect that there will be other people there. Before going, you can check the event details. Find out what precautions the organizers have set to ensure everyone’s health and safety.

Check Out Absolute Destruction Today!

Document shredding is essential to protect the privacy of your home, local business, nonprofit, or community.

Partnering with professional shredding services in London is an excellent idea if you want to organize a shredding event. Aside from protecting your personal information, these events also help you comply with the province’s access and privacy laws.

You can contact Absolute Destruction today for more information and a free quote on different data destruction services.

Aside from paper documents and credit cards, we also destroy storage devices like laptops, computers, and hard drives.

Buying a shredder or waiting for a shredding event in your location requires time, energy, and money. Contact Absolute Destruction for reliable shredding services today!

FAQs on How Safe Are Shredding Events and Should You Attend One

Can you witness the shredding process?

Yes. You can hang around shredding events and request to witness the shredding process of your own documents.

How do you differentiate between on-site and off-site shredding?

On-site shredding means that the mobile shredding trucks go to your premises. Off-site shredding means you need to take your documents to the shredding facility.

How to know if the shredding company is reputable and certified?

You can look into their affiliations, such as the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) or PRISM International. It’s also important to ask whether they provide a certificate of destruction after their services.

The post How Safe Are Shredding Events and Should You Attend One appeared first on Absolute Destruction.

No matter how digital technology evolves, paper documents will always have a place in your home and office. Let’s check out some more reasons why.

Official Documentation

Signing on the dotted line will always be the most official way to sign a document and bind oneself in a contract. Digital signatures can be practical when people can’t go into offices and need to remain home.

But if the option is there, or the stakes are high, the in-person signature on an actual piece of paper is the most official way to sign a document. Every lawyer and person in business uses digital devices to communicate back and forth.

When it comes to binding together two parties in a legal contract, paper documents are here to stay. The security paper provides is even more appreciated at a time when more people than ever are working from home, so get office shredding where you live if you’ve become a remote worker.

Reading on Paper is Preferred to a Screen

Most people spend hours a day looking at a digital screen. You’re reading one right now!

Reading a digital screen is OK in short bursts, but if you have a long document, it’s more comfortable to read a paper version of it. This desire for readability applies to long contracts, proprietary information, intellectual property like a script, and other common forms of document.

Even with convenient digital forms of information, people will always prefer reading a paper document. When you need home document shredding to eliminate tangible forms of sensitive information, call Absolute Destruction.

Paper Can’t Be Hacked

Nothing matters more than security, and even the world’s most advanced hacker can’t hack a paper document! Tangible documents are impervious to hacks, and this level of security can’t be ignored.

Most people aren’t security experts and lack the time and expertise to ensure their communications are impenetrable. Even devices with end-to-end encryption can be hacked if the hacker finds another vulnerability. They can get their hands on the physical device itself or bypass the encryption altogether and obtain your communications via some other route.

Digital technology is very convenient, but its convenience is a double-edged sword. When security is paramount, and it often is, people will always default to using paper documents that can’t be hacked.

It’s easy to take paper documents for granted in an era of futuristic technology, but paper was a ground-breaking technology that changed world history! Paper serves essential functions that even the most impressive digital technology can’t offer. The future will always have paper documents, but that doesn’t mean you need to keep every piece of paper around. When you need to eliminate your sensitive papers securely, call the leading shredding company in Toronto and the GTA, Absolute Destruction.

The post Paper Documentation Matters in a Digital World appeared first on Absolute Destruction.

Read on to learn all about what makes us the best shredding service in Kitchener and the GTA.

NAID Member

Absolute Destruction is one of about 2,000 worldwide members of the National Association of Information Destruction, or NAID, the industry’s only standard-setting body advocating for best practices in secure data destruction.

NAID also provides tools for compliance with all known data protection regulations. When public and private companies need to offer their clients peace of mind, they make sure the shredder they hire is a member of NAID.

Convenient Paper Shredding

Everybody wants to keep their sensitive documents confidential, but nobody wants to haul heavy boxes anywhere. With Absolute Destruction, or mobile shredding truck can come right to your home or office, so you can get sensitive documents destroyed without having to lift a finger.

Your home may contain common documents which could cause you untold harm if an identity thief were to ever get their hands on them. Such a list may include:

• Banking records
• Tax information
• Papers containing passwords
• Social insurance data

These documents are ordinary papers everybody accumulates in the process of being a citizen, yet today’s identity thieves don’t always need a comprehensive amount of background information to be able to blackmail you, or drain your bank account.

Offices have their own species of sensitive data pertaining to thing like clients or proprietary information. If you need document shredding services in Kitchener for your home or office, don’t waste time bringing it to a shredder yourself. Just call Absolute Destruction and we’ll either shred your sensitive documents right there on the curbside, or transport them to our facility where they’ll be securely destroyed.

Electronic Shredding

A home or an office containing sensitive information on an electronic device is a liability, one that can’t be fixed by simply throwing the electronic into the garbage. When you call a professional shredder, they will pulverize the microchips on the electronic device until the data that was on them cannot possibly be retrieved.

Dumpster diving can involve paper documents or a long list of electronics, some of which may not occur to people immediately as a data liability:

• Desktops
• Laptops
• Tablets
• Smartphones
• USB/flash drives
• Photocopier or printer memory card

If you have any of these or some other electronics storing information you don’t want to fall into the wrong hands, call Absolute Destruction for quick and easy shredding.

Specialty Destruction

Finally, sometimes info is stored not on paper or an electronic device, but in some other more unorthodox form. Absolute Destruction can handle the job. A short list of items we can eliminate for specialty destruction includes:

• Pharmaceutical packaging
• X-rays
• Dental moulds
• ID cards
• Access cards
• Uniforms with logos
• Clothing or t-shirts

Not only does Absolute Destruction shred any type of sensitive information you have, we’re also committed to helping our clients achieve their environmental targets and carbon reduction goals.

Visit our website to learn more about Absolute Destruction and all the ways that we take your privacy seriously. For top-notch service in Kitchener that is convenient, secure, and environmentally friendly, call Absolute Destruction today.

The post What Makes Us Kitchener’s Best Information Shredder? appeared first on Absolute Destruction.