Careless and Common Shredding Mistakes

Case #1 - January 11, 2006

A Government office discards strip-cut documents in clear trash bags. Over 30 trash bags were piled beside a full dumpster just 20 feet from a busy city street. The dumpster area was not secure and was easily accessible to a “dumpster diver” or “bin dipper”. The clear bags show that the contents were important enough that they needed to be shredded. The strip-cut documents were ¼” wide and 11” long and many were cut in the same direction as the printing, making the material easy to read and reconstruct.

Case #2 - March 16, 2006

Hundreds of strip-cut shreds blow across a grassy area next to a busy highway. A bag of shredded documents apparently fell unnoticed from a vehicle. Was it on its way to a landfill or to a local farm where the shreds would be used for animal bedding? The strip-cut papers contained Social Security numbers, names, date of hire, date of termination, job title, and reason for termination for employees of a manufacturing firm. The ¼” wide by 11” long strips were carelessly cut in the same direction as the printing, allowing the information for each employee to be in tact.

Don’t be careless with the destruction and disposal of your confidential information.
 

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