Why It Matters What You Do With Old Files And Documents

Many businesses around Australia contain the personal and contact information of their clients and customers for one reason or another. Perhaps it is due to their current monthly order of equipment or maybe it was due to a prescription they fulfilled with you. Whatever the case, this information and all tangential information related to this information needs to be strictly monitored and, when the time comes, destroyed. Every company needs to be able to complete thorough data destruction of sensitive information relating to customers and previous orders, and if you can't, you need to use data destruction services.

What Is Data Destruction?

Data destruction is not just the deleting of your old files and documents, but the in-depth wiping of all the information so that it can no longer be accessed in any meaningful way. In many cases, data destruction is actually data obfuscation, as it is easier and more effective to simply scramble all the data so that it is unrecognisable. Data destruction is used by many large- and medium-sized companies, and often it is the smaller ones who forget to do this data destruction regularly. If you are a small business and haven't utilised data destruction services before, it is vital you do so as soon as possible.

Why Data Destruction Is Important

Apart from the ethical obligation you have to not put your customer's information in danger, you also have a legal obligation to reduce the risk of this happening. While it is easy to think there is no way a data breach can happen to you because you are so small, you would be surprised. All it takes is a few dozen of your files to be accessed by malevolent online programs and you could have a serious data breach. If this happens, and you haven't recently cleared your data files, then you can be in big trouble.

Is Data Destruction Ever Done Physically?

Most of the time, data destruction is not actually a physical process, but rather digitally done. Sometimes, especially if a business is closing a major account or moving, they will destroy the hard drives that contain now useless information, but this is quite rare because with data destruction they can be reused with little risk. In the past, files and documents were shredded and some companies still need to do this if physical copies of their clients' information exist, but that is becoming rarer as the whole business world shifts online. 

Reach out to professionals who provide data destruction services to learn more.