Life Cycle of a Document

Document Life

Many documents are created within an office environment on a daily basis. Even "paperless" offices may create documents that contain "personal" or "confidential" information that must be disposed of prudently.

Document Storage

Documents may be put into file cabinets and stored until their usefulness expires. Sometimes storage lockers are utilized to store documents that must be retained for a longer period of time, either by industry practice or by law.

When it comes time to discard documents they must be discarded in the correct manner to abide by applicable laws or business practices.

To assist our regular customers in fulfilling their legal obligation, we provide "on-site" lockable containers for the collection of sensitive materials awaiting destruction.

Document Destruction

North Bay Document Shredding performs all destruction services on-site to insure that all documents are unreadable before leaving the customer's premises. Our mobile shredding trucks utilize the latest in technology, resulting in the smallest shred size. They are also equipped with "observation windows" which allow our customers to witness the destruction process.

The driver wheels the documents in the container directly to the truck for shredding. At the truck, the container is unlocked, raised hydraulically and automatically fed into the shredding system. Because our truck's automated feeding system allows for "hands-off" document destruction, we can ensure complete confidentiality. Upon completion of the work, the driver returns the container to its designated area and locks it.

We Help Complete the Cycle

At the end of the business day, our on-site shredding truck returns to our secure baling facility. The shredded materials are emptied directly from our shredding truck into our baling machine, where the paper is processed into paper bales. The paper bales are temporarily stored within our secure facility and then transported to the paper-mill where they are recycled into new paper products.

North Bay Document Shredding prides itself in the fact that no third parties are involved in any of the services we provide.

Security

Important Facts to Know

Every business has confidential data that requires destruction. Without safeguards, this information can end up in a dumpster or landfill where it is readily, and legally available to anyone who wants it.

From a risk management perspective, the only acceptable method of discarding stored records is to destroy them by a method that ensures that the information is completely obliterated. In addition, documenting the exact date that a record is destroyed is a prudent and recommended legal precaution.

Even incidental business records discarded on a daily basis should be protected. Internal personnel should not be responsible for destroying certain information. Common sense dictates that payroll information and materials that involve labor relations or legal affairs, should not be entrusted to lower level employees for destruction.

Recycling, by itself, is not an adequate alternative for information destruction. Paper is often stored for an indefinite period of time, then it is then baled, sold and stored again for weeks, if not months until used to make new products.

A Certificate of Destruction does not relieve a company from its obligation to keep information confidential. Any company contracting an information destruction service should require that it provide them with a signed testimonial, documenting the date that the materials were destroyed. This action is an important legal record of compliance with a retention schedule.

The owner of the records is ultimately responsible for their security and therefore should be selecting the vendor directly.

An organization could actually forfeit the right to defend its trade secrets, proprietary technology and non-competition agreements if it fails to protect information at every point.*

*Excerpt from www.naidonline.org. Used with permission.