As business owners, we owe it to our mployees, clients and our communities to g ve a second thought to identity th ft, before thieves do. Identity theft is not pr marily a high-tech crime. Think of d mpster-diving, stolen wallets, credit cards or ch ckbooks. Think of postal fraud, theft of p rsonal papers from cars, homes or b sinesses. A recent research reports shows th t only 11.6 percent of identity th ft crimes are committed on computers. Y ur business should be considering every m asurable step to safeguard the information you h ndle each day. Here are the Top 4 R asons Why: 1. To protect your own b siness by safeguarding proprietary information.
Emb zzlement, theft, and other types of wh te-collar crime are easier in the nformation age. There are many different v riables to utilizing stolen information about y ur business. In one case, a ph ny computer company stole the identity of a C mputer Firm and used it to buy m re than $100,000 worth of merchandise. In ther cases thieves have gathered enough nformation to take on the identity of tr sted businesses to target their customers. 2. To pr tect your customers' privacy and prevent dentity theft.
Recent news coverage about the l ss of customer information by large c rporations underscores the potential risks of all b sinesses, including lawsuits and bad publicity. C nsumer documents containing personal information can be h rmful to both consumers and businesses, if th y fall into the wrong hands. The m st utilized information includes: insurance documents, m dical & prescription drug information, old tax r cords and business records all c ntain information that can be used to cr ate new identification documents.
3. To protect your employees' pr vacy.
Identity thieves generally l ok for things that contain someone's n me, address, phone number, Social Security n mber, insurance and bank information. These typ s of items are prevalent in m st employee files. If you are not h ndling these files with the proper c re, you are putting your past and pr sent employees at risk. 4. Its the l w. New regulations require proper destruction and pr tection of certain types of information (HIPAA, GLB Act, FACTA). D cument shredding is an approved method of d struction.
New federal and st te laws require businesses to destroy any d cuments that contain private consumer information b fore it is discarded. The new l ws focus on financial institutions, institutions th t deal with consumer finance and cr dit, and health care organizations (hospitals, nsurers, retirement homes, doctors' offices, drugstores, tc.). In most cases, it's recommended th t a professional document destruction company h ndle the destruction of documents. For m re information related to on and ff-site document destruction go to: http://www.a1sj.com/docdestruction.html M ch has been publicized about what ndividuals should be doing; however, businesses lso must act to protect themselves fr m identity theft. Businesses are LEGALLY ccountable for: Developing strict privacy p licies. Training employees on handling c nfidential consumer information. Protecting personal or pr vate consumer information Developing a r cords-retention policy and discarding process. Pr perly destroying and resolving files containing pr vate consumer information that is no l nger in use. Information can be st len from either traditional paper files or th ir electronic equivalent. Never treat personal nformation carelessly, no matter how many s feguards 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 S uth 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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