The Legal Requirements of Shredding In The U.S

Identity theft or blackmailing someone by withholding confidential information is prevalent in the list of crimes. The government of the U.S has made it mandatory to destroy any potential proof of confidential information which can be used against you or your company. Now why these strict rules were made?

Greenwood Case

The background of the ruling lies in the verdict of the case Greenwood filed against the state. According to the defendant, it was unethical and unreasonable to use the evidence in the trash to find and arrest him. However, the state ruled out against him because anything that was in the garbage would be considered public property, and there was no violation of his rights if the police used the documents against him.

Which Laws Say To Destroy The Confidential Information?

The first law that one must know regarding handling confidential information is the Social Security Act. It is a simple rule that states that employers, potential partners, patients, clients, or any third party cannot reveal any social security number of the person with whom they are conducting business. This law was the first stepping stone which, at the time of the issuance, regarded the act of revealing information as unlawful and became the basis of many other rulings in the future.

The next act came in 1974, known as the Privacy Act; this ruling gave the public more power over the rights of privacy. The revealing of client information was a direct breach of the court, and the penalty was implemented. Further, this act also ensures that the information a client provides is carefully tracked and monitored so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. If a client’s information gets leaked in any way, then the party who had the information bears the burnt.

This meant that there was a need for a law that ensured the destruction of confidential information about clients that is no longer in your use.

Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA)

The FACTA law was implemented that stated if there is no use of the information of a client, then the company must destroy the data, whether it is in hardcopy or a drive. The company is also obliged to give privacy to the clients even after the business is done.

Disposing the data is a sensitive task, and the company must ensure that the documents or any electronic data do not leave the premises unless it is in a locked trunk of a legally compliant shredding service truck. The data must not be readable at all, and to do this, people burn down the documents and use disintegrators for plastic chips, and the most prevalent is the shredding service.

Now, according to the laws of HIPAA, companies cannot shred the information themselves; they need to submit proof of destruction to the authorities. The shredding services play an important role in helping such companies. The constitution has made the destruction certificates by a certified shredding company necessary as proof of disposing of confidential information.

The shredding is the safest process in keeping the environment clean because burning paper can pollute the air and the chemical burning and acid fumes are also toxic to humans.