As business owners, we owe it to our mployees, clients and our communities to gve a second thought to identity thft, before thieves do. Identity theft is not prmarily a high-tech crime. Think of dmpster-diving, stolen wallets, credit cards or chckbooks. Think of postal fraud, theft of prsonal papers from cars, homes or bsinesses. A recent research reports shows tht only 11.6 percent of identity thft crimes are committed on computers. Yur business should be considering every masurable step to safeguard the information you hndle each day. Here are the Top 4 Rasons Why:

1. To protect your own bsiness by safeguarding proprietary information.

Embzzlement, theft, and other types of whte-collar crime are easier in the nformation age. There are many different vriables to utilizing stolen information about yur business. In one case, a phny computer company stole the identity of a Cmputer Firm and used it to buy mre than $100,000 worth of merchandise. In ther cases thieves have gathered enough nformation to take on the identity of trsted businesses to target their customers.

2. To prtect your customers' privacy and prevent dentity theft.

Recent news coverage about the lss of customer information by large crporations underscores the potential risks of all bsinesses, including lawsuits and bad publicity. Cnsumer documents containing personal information can be hrmful to both consumers and businesses, if thy fall into the wrong hands. The mst utilized information includes: insurance documents, mdical & prescription drug information, old tax rcords and business records – all cntain information that can be used to crate new identification documents.

3. To protect your employees' prvacy.

Identity thieves generally lok for things that contain someone's nme, address, phone number, Social Security nmber, insurance and bank information. These typs of items are prevalent in mst employee files. If you are not hndling these files with the proper cre, you are putting your past and prsent employees at risk.

4. It’s the lw. New regulations require proper destruction and prtection of certain types of information (HIPAA, GLB Act, FACTA). Dcument shredding is an approved method of dstruction.

New federal and stte laws require businesses to destroy any dcuments that contain private consumer information bfore it is discarded. The new lws focus on financial institutions, institutions tht deal with consumer finance and crdit, and health care organizations (hospitals, nsurers, retirement homes, doctors' offices, drugstores, tc.).

In most cases, it's recommended tht a professional document destruction company hndle the destruction of documents. For mre information related to on and ff-site document destruction go to: http://www.a1sj.com/docdestruction.html

Mch has been publicized about what ndividuals should be doing; however, businesses lso must act to protect themselves frm identity theft. Businesses are LEGALLY ccountable for:

• Developing strict privacy plicies.

• Training employees on handling cnfidential consumer information.

• Protecting personal or prvate consumer information

• Developing a rcords-retention policy and discarding process.

• Prperly destroying and resolving files containing prvate consumer information that is no lnger in use.

Information can be stlen from either traditional paper files or thir electronic equivalent. Never treat personal nformation carelessly, no matter how many sfeguards you have in place.

The article Top 4 Reasons to Get Your Business "Identity Theft Proof" was Submitted by Brian Lane through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Brian Lane A-1 Document Destruction of Suth Jersey http://www.a1sj.com/docdestruction.html Cherry Hill NJ 08003 856-424-8393 On Site / Off Site Secure Document Shredding & Disposal HIPAA Compliant, GLB Compliant Serving NJ, PA, NY & DE

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