Expert Q & A: What Small Business Owners Need to Know About Identity Theft

March 30, 2008 By Mary White

Identity theft is a growing problem for businesses as well as individuals. It’s important for small business owners to understand what identity theft is, how widespread the problem is becoming, and what they can do to prevent problems from impacting their businesses, employees, and clients. Joe Roberto, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Shred-Tech, shares his insight with American Small Business News Readers.

1. How can throwing away confidential documents lead to problems with identity theft?
Though digging through a dumpster might not sound like much fun to you, criminals can certainly have a hey-day with your trash. A study commissioned by the Federal Trade Commission reveals that personal data is usually stolen in offline ways – such as dumpster diving – with only about 12 percent of the cases being a result of the Internet.

Most identity theft crimes are the result of information stolen from a single improperly handled document containing personal information. This kind of information tends to end up in dumpsters, trash cans or recycling bins where it’s easily forgotten by its owner, but not by criminals.

2. What types of information are commonly used in identity theft crimes?
The most commonly used information in identity theft crimes includes social security and bank account numbers and credit card information. Medical identity theft is also becoming more prevalent. Any information taken from someone’s medical, financial and personal records can be altered slightly and lead to full-blown identity theft.

3. What are the most important steps a small business owner can take to protect themselves, their employees, and their customers from identity theft?
First and foremost, companies should create a formal information protection policy that addresses ways for employees to protect their personal information as well as their customers’. This includes:

• Distributing paper recycling containers throughout the office and hiring a local mobile shredding service on a regular basis to provide secure on-site shredding.
• Installing the best possible firewall and antivirus software on all servers and computers and running it daily.
• Developing safety precautions that employees should take to keep their laptops safe and perhaps even equipping laptops with fingerprint readers to safeguard data.
• Not giving away or selling old computers. Even if you have deleted the hard drive, savvy computer hackers will be able to recover some if not much of the data. Computer hard drives should be shredded and recycled.

4. What are the most important legal considerations small business owners need to think about when deciding whether or not to use a document shredding service?
The 2003 Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, or FACTA, stipulates that businesses must dispose of sensitive financial documents in a way that protects against “unauthorized access to or use of the information.” This law applies to businesses of all sizes and noncompliant businesses can face fines up to a $2,500.

Secure document destruction is the only way to guarantee the safe disposal of sensitive information. When selecting a shredding service, consider visiting its facility to ensure the security of its processes, which include destroying documents immediately when received and keeping documents from being exposed.

One of the most effective ways to ensure documents are securely destroyed is to hire a mobile shredding service. This enables the customer to witness the entire shredding process in real-time.

Share and Enjoy: