There are services available for anything these days. I have heard of laundry services, house cleaning services, dog walking services, courier services, catering services, dating services, even financial services. Yesterday I had my first encounter with secure document shredding. The concept makes sense now that I think about it. I have to admit though; at first I was under the impression that this was a personal service. All I could imagine was someone too lazy or didn’t want to bother with shredding their bills and all of the junk mail that they receive. Why wouldn’t they just want to stick it all in a shredder? Of course, it soon became clear that there are many corporations that would have paperword and information too sensitive to keep on hand so it has to be destroyed.
One such company is a pharmaceutical company that I visited. As I wandered around I noticed these bins that were all over the building. The employees would drop in various papers throughout the day. The bottom of the cabinet is locked with a key that only the shredding company has the key to. The paper shredding services come once or twice a week, remove the bag full of papers and replace it with an empty one. The bag is taken to another location to be destroyed and the cycle begins again.
When I really think about it, it is very clear to me that a paper shredding service is logical and even necessary. For some reason I find it difficult to believe that this method is as secure as just destroying the documents on site. Of course, when I think about that pharmaceutical company I just have to hope that they are just as secure with their drugs.