What To Do With Your Old Electronics

From cell phones to external drives to old desktops, you can end up with a fairly large box full of miscellaneous gear from all kinds of manufacturers. So just how should you be getting rid of your cell phones and getting the answers as to what to do with old computers? Should you take the box to a technology recycling center and drop it off? Can you smash everything to bits and put it in the garbage can? Neither of these are great options. Old electronics are typically more dangerous than we sometimes realize. A hard drive may look destroyed, but even a novice cybercriminal will know that it's easier to extract valuable data than it may look. We'll look at what it means to really dispose of all your old electronics and why you might need to reconsider your plans. 

Is Your Business Properly Disposing of Old Technology?

Old technology is something of a mystery to many people. They may know that wiping a device entirely doesn't always erase the information, but they also might reasonably wonder if it's really necessary to take the extra step? When you consider just how valuable data can be though, particularly for small businesses that might not always have the best cyber security in general, the answer is that you don't want to take any chances. Breaches aren't just common, they're also exceptionally difficult to climb out from under the aftermath. We'll look at whether you're getting rid of your technology the way you should and what steps you can take to be a little more prepared for a data leak.

Prepare To Return To The Office With A Document Destruction Plan

If you operate a business in an industry that works with sensitive data, it's critical that you have an effective, thorough document destruction plan in place. These plans typically outline records retention timelines and the steps your organization takes to protect confidential information and stay compliant with local, state, and federal guidelines. 

Tax Season Is Here: What to Shred and What to Keep

Even for those getting refunds, it's not always easy to gear up for tax season. The sheer volume of questions and documents can be enough for anyone to put it off until the last minute. One way that you can streamline the process for yourself (and reduce your odds of identity theft at the same time) is to dispose of the documents that you don't need. How long should you keep your tax returns? We'll look at the recommendations and how you can start dividing the piles so there's less to keep track of. 

Shred Your Tax Documents With NAID Certified Experts

It’s tax season. That means confidential and sensitive documents are in overflow. Although some documents are more important than others, it’s important to remember identity theft is alive and well. Using a mobile shredding service may be the best thing, especially if your home or business is full of other people’s information. By shredding documents, you save space, time, and money with identity theft protection protocols in place. The best solution to consider is using a professional shredding service.

Our Media Destruction Process

When you’re considering how to dispose of old technology, one of the hardest things to consider is your hard drive. Hard drive wiping software is useful, but it does not completely erase all the sensitive information that can be compromised. In fact, hard drive destruction is probably the only way you will be able to ensure your information remains confidential and away from hackers or identity thieves who want to cause harm.

Save Time and Money with Professional Hard Drive Destruction

With so much technology and information floating around, it’s more important than ever to safely and securely destroy your hard drive. While many people think they can just get rid of their computer without wiping the information, they quickly find out their data can be compromised in the worst way. Using a professional hard drive destruction service is one of the best ways to ensure the hard drive is dismantled and disposed of properly.

How To Dispose of Old Technology

Many organizations have robust systems in place when it comes to the destruction of documents; perhaps they lock shredding into secure bins; work only with certified vendors; or require shredding to performed on-site for maximum security and peace of mind. However, many small and large business don’t have a similar process in place for technology, like cell phones, hard drives, laptops, tablets, and personal computers, all of which can contain secure information that, if compromised, can be used to harm either the business or it’s stakeholders, like clients and employees. Having a safe and compliant policy outlining the destruction of old technology can protect your business, your employees, and your customers from being targeted or attacked by criminals. In this blog post, we’ll outline the most important components of an electronic data disposal policy and how to choose the right vendor for the job.

The Dangers of DIY Hard Drive Destruction 

Everything that you do on a device is recorded on the hard drive, making it a very valuable item for criminals. It's not just what you save, but all of the code needed to operate the device, access the network and support any accessory devices. Before cloud storage, hard drives were critical to devices, as they were the primary device to house all the data. However, even now, it's something that you shouldn't take any chances with. When you're done with a hard drive, destroying it on your own isn't recommended. Hard drive destruction cost by a professional company can be worth its weight in gold when you consider the alternatives. 

Mobile Shredding: Declutter and Reorganize without Leaving Your Home

With COVID on everyone's mind right now, the question has become: How can we get things done without compromising our health and safety? Now is the best time to rid your home of all of the things that you don't need anymore. Not only can it help you start off 2021 with a fresh perspective, but it will also make spring cleaning that much easier to tackle. When you're surrounded by clutter, it can start to impact your mental health. You can quickly begin to feel overwhelmed by the mess, wondering what to even do with it all. We'll tell you why you should make this a priority and how to get it all done. 

Why Identity Thieves Love DIY Hard Drive Destruction

When a computer or a hard drive has reached the end of its days, many people just throw it away. Some try to destroy the hard drive with a hard drive destruction tool that is not made to destroy hard drives. While tools such as drills and hammers might work to render the drives inoperable, do you really want to trust that you’ve destroyed the platters in your DIY hard drive destruction?

End of Year Purges

It’s almost the end of the year and decluttering is probably high on the list of things to do. One of the best things you can do is start the year off without unnecessary documents from the previous year. This means you may need shredding services to help with those excessive piles of paper that may be collecting dust in boxes, under the desk, in a junk drawer, or on the desk.

Do’s and Don’ts of Hard Drive Destruction

When considering hard drive destruction, it’s important to work with professionals who specialize in ensuring your information is completely removed. Although doing it yourself may sound like a great option, the risks are much greater than the money spent getting it professionally done.

How to Dispose of Old Hard Drives

If you’re a packrat and don’t mind keeping old computers, especially if you keep them locked up, chances are, no one will steal the data off them. However, most people don’t want that stuff cluttering up their homes, so they throw the computers in the dump. However, that is not the best way to practice identity theft protection, even if you wiped those hard drives. The best way to make sure your identity doesn’t fall into the hands of an unsavory character is to use Royal Document Destruction’s secure hard drive shredding services. The only other way to render the data inaccessible is to take it to the range and shoot it until it’s demolished in a bazillion bitty pieces.

What is Media Destruction

Your media – hard drives, USB drives and other digital storage media, all contain confidential information about you, or if you own a business, your clients. Throwing old computers and digital media out is like handing an identity thief the universe. Hard drive shredding and other media destruction keep thieves from accessing data on your digital media. Royal Document Destruction has mobile equipment that can “shred” all of your digital media.

What is a Certificate of Destruction

When you retain Royal Document Destruction to shred your confidential documents and digital media, you are retaining a company that gives a Certificate of Destruction each time you have something shredded. NAID provides the certificate of destruction for shredding services companies who follow the strict confidentiality laws, including HIPAA and FACTA. NAID audits any company belonging to the organization — with scheduled and surprise audits — to ensure that the companies are properly training their employees and are meeting the requirements of these federal laws.

How Secure is Shredding?

If there’s one thing that can help protect sensitive data from getting in the wrong hands, it’s by properly handling document destruction. For most people, this means using a shredder. As a business owner or individual, shredding is more secure than any other technique when done properly. If you’re responsible for the disposal of confidential data, chances are you’ll need a secure shredding company to keep things regulated, and in compliance with federal rules. Even as an individual, when the timeframe for keeping certain documents is over, shredding them by using a professional company is the best way to ensure those documents are completely destroyed. Businesses use retention schedules to make sure the documents are kept and shredded within the legal timeframe. This helps with potential space issues and in having your documents in a non-secure place.

Tax Season: How Long Do I Keep My Documents?

Tax season is upon us again, and that means tons of tax documents for individuals and businesses. You have to figure out which of those tax documents to keep and which ones to destroy. Throwing them in the trash, especially documents with birth dates and social security numbers on them, leaves a gold mine for identity thieves. And, if you are a business, you could face fines and may have to pay out settlements if your clients’ data gets into the wrong hands.

Shredding Keeps You Safe During Tax Season

You do have to keep tax records for some time — three to seven years. However, once the retention period expires, you should shred the returns with a document destruction company that offers secure shredding. Your tax returns have a lot of personal information that identity thieves can use to steal your identity, including your social security number, name, address, your dependents, and even your income. Secure shredding is part of data protection, as is shredding old hard drives and other digital media that contain personal information.

Why Shred with a NAID Certified Company

The National Association for Information Destruction gives NAID certification to document shredding companies who comply with data protection laws. NAID, formed in 2000, does scheduled and surprise audits on shredding companies to ensure that they are in compliance with the data protection laws. In addition to the audits, companies who wish to be NAID certified must give the organization proof of their written procedures and policies for employee training, regulatory compliance and incident response preparedness. NAID also provides access to the results of the audits.

Steps to Take While at Home

During the coronavirus pandemic, you should be sheltering in place — and are probably bored out of your mind. Spring cleaning is done and there’s not much more you can do to keep occupied other than watching TV, reading or working on hobbies. To break up the monotony, declutter your files. Now would be the perfect time for you to tackle that job, and once you go through and create a box of documents you no longer need, call Royal Document Service for no-contact mobile shredding services. Shredding anything with personal information on it significantly reduces the risk of identity theft.

COVID-19: Our New Best Business Practices for Hygiene

• Our plant manager is taking the temperatures of the entire RDD staff every morning
• Drivers are required to wear masks to all customer facilities
• Drivers are disinfecting their trucks at the end of each business day
• Drop off customers are all required to wear a mask at all times in our office
• Our office staff will put on masks when a customer or visitor enters the building
• Our staff is encouraged to wear masks, and we have provided masks to our entire staff
• We have provided disposable gloves to our employees
• Our warehouse floor has been marked with x’s for effective workspace social distancing
• All staff meetings are taking place outside in our plant so that we can maintain appropriate 6-foot distancing at all times
• The breakroom has a maximum capacity of 2 people now so that 6-foot distancing can be maintained
• The staff must use disinfectant cleaner after they eat or use the break room and disinfect anything that they touched
• Our offices are being cleaned nightly, including sanitizing all frequently touched surfaces
• Door knobs and other high touch surfaces are being cleaned multiple times throughout the day
• Hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, and antibacterial cleaners are located at various locations throughout our facility so that they are very convenient to use
• The shred containers are being disinfected after being emptied when they come back to our facility
• There are signs up and around the office reminding the staff to wash their hands frequently, maintain a 6-foot distance from others at all times, use good hygiene, not to touch their faces, and to stay home if sick
• Our occupancy is below the 50% allowed rate at all times.

Shred Bags: Secure Shredding For Employees Working From Home

Secure Shredding While Working From Home

When your employees are working from home because of covid19, they might have generated documents that need to be shredded. You have to rely on your employees to bring the documents into the office, but meanwhile, they sit unsecured in your employees’ homes. Instead of taking a chance that confidential information could get into the wrong hands, get your employees secure shred bags. The bags come in 6- and 12-gallon sizes. Your employees simply fill them up and seal them. When they can bring the confidential documents back, you just put the filled bags into your shred boxes or lock them up until the shred truck comes. We’ll shred the bag and its contents without unsealing the bag.

Shred Bags: No Contact Decluttering

As part of alleviating the boredom of staying home, many people are decluttering their home offices. In some cases, people are working from home because of shelter in place orders. Both types of people practicing social distancing could benefit from our no contact service. Royal Document Destruction provides Seal ‘n Shred bags that you can use for documents that have to go to the shredder. We'll send you the bags. When you fill them up, call us to arrange for a pickup. Put the bags on the front porch when you see us pull up. Or, you can hand them to us through the door. The bags come in two sizes: 6 dry-gallon bags that hold about 15 pounds and 12 dry-gallon bags that hold about 35 pounds.

How Shredding Combats COVID

According to the Healthcare Environmental Resource Center, healthcare facilities create close to two billion pounds of paper and cardboard waste every year. With the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, paper waste has significantly increased. Covid-19, which causes the coronavirus, is very infectious, which means that hospitals and doctors are seeing a dramatic increase in patients. Paper gowns, paper masks, paper on the examination tables, and even paper that wraps bandages and other supplies are being used much more because of this pandemic. Using recycled paper that has been through a sterilization process to make more of these paper products helps with protecting the environment, with alleviating the shortage of paper products, and in keeping recyclable material out of the waste stream.

Tax Season: What Documents to Shred Now

With tax season upon us, many people are not sure which tax documents they need to keep and which ones to shred now. If you are a business, you should have a retention schedule that tells you which documents to keep and which documents to shred. However, employee payroll records are often tax documents, and those should be kept for up to seven years. As an individual, you should keep most tax documents for at least three years, while you need to keep some for up to six or seven years. If you are an individual, you might need shredding services once per year, while businesses, depending on the type of business, might need our services every week.

Protecting Your Identity with Document Destruction

Most people don’t think of identity theft when they throw away junk mail. But having that one piece of information might be all they need to complete a profile on you to steal your identity. Even junk mail that has your address on it should go in the shredding bin. Our shredding services provide document destruction when you need it, whether it’s once per year or every week. Even other seemingly innocuous documents, such as your child’s report cards have identifying information and should be shredded if you don’t plan on keeping them. Like junk mail, people don't think about what is on their hard drives -- these should also be shredded to protect your information. 

The Benefits of Shredding Local

It’s no secret that protecting sensitive data is a huge concern. While there are tons of document destruction companies, having a local shredding company on your team can help save time, money, and provide an additional layer of protection to documents being destroyed. No company wants to run the risk of having internal documents and information compromised. When using a local company, you’re able to build a relationship with the owner and employees to quickly resolve any issues if they arise. You’re also able to monitor what’s going on, including utilizing on-site services if they are available. It’s much easier to run over to a company that’s in town to help solve a problem or utilize your risk management team rather than having to travel long distances. For some organizations, having a document disposal company that’s far away just won’t do.

Documents Your Ohio Business Needs to Shred Now

One of the biggest myths around is that shredding documents will keep information safe. It really depends on the type of shredding that takes place. Having documents professionally shredded will help alleviate data breaches because they use commercial shredders designed to add an additional layer of protection to the document destruction process. Many people don’t realize that hard drives need to be shredded as well. Being educated on what needs to be shredded professionally can alleviate a lot of headaches down the road.

Declutter Your Home or Office with Royal Document Destruction

No matter what the protocol is at your office, almost all businesses are guilty of letting the clutter pile up over time. Busy office managers and supervisors swear they'll get to it soon, but that day takes months to actually come around. If you're like most companies throughout the US, you likely start clearing everything out either at the very end or very beginning of the year. But ideally, you should be decluttering throughout the year rather than waiting for it to pile up — and it's not just because everyone in the office will work better when they're not distracted by clutter. If you want to stay compliant with state and local laws, you need to be getting rid of sensitive information so there are fewer chances of a security breach. 

Schedule Retention and Document Destruction

When your business receives or creates documents, you should have a list with the received date or creation date. This creates a retention schedule so you know when you can send the documents out for document destruction. In many cases, your business has to save records for seven to ten years – but holding onto documents for so long eventually causes a space issue. Instead of running out of space or having to rent a less-than-secure storage locker, creating a schedule retention list and destroying the documents that are outdated keeps your documents safer.

The Importance of Professional Hard Drive Destruction

Your old hard drive may seem irrelevant or out of date, but it likely contains data that could prove extremely damaging for your business and your valued customers. Often, hard drives include such sensitive information as Social Security Numbers, bank account routing numbers, and medical records. This data is rarely encrypted, making it shockingly easy to access for those with even modest technical skills.

The Value of Our NAID Certification

The Value of Our NAID Certification

When dealing with sensitive documents, it's important to seek assistance from only the most reliable shredding services. Without proper certification, however, it's impossible to truly know whether a particular provider is trustworthy. Hence, the value of the NAID AAA certification, which instills greater confidence in those seeking dependable shredding services. 

What Gets Stolen from Old Hard Drives

Your old hard drive is in high demand, and those that want it would rather not pay for it. About one-third of companies and individuals do not adequately wipe hard drives before discarding them, and those hard drives are like gold to identity thieves. Researchers at BT, a UK telecoms company, Longwood University in Virginia, the University of Glamorgan in Wales and the University in Perth, Australia found tons of personal information, including financial information, on used hard drives they bought at computer fairs, online and at retail outlets. Instead of taking a chance that you didn’t wipe all the sensitive information off your old hard drive, contact Royal Document Destruction for professional hard drive destruction services.

The Rise of Recycling Fees: Are You Being Nickel-and-Dimed?

When paper prices decline, shredding companies lose money because they aren’t paid as much for the
shredded paper they sell to recycling companies. This means that, often, national shredding companies
pass that cost onto you when you bring your documents in for shredding. These businesses are trying to
recover losses by charging higher recycling fees for their shredding services – as high as 20 percent for
each customer! They expertly bury the costs by giving the price increases a different name - for
instance- by increasing another 10 percent on to the 4 percent “environmental fee” they already charge.
Royal Document Destruction has a transparent fee schedule and do not nickel and dime you like other
companies do. Call or visit us for a free quote!