Information theft occurs when an individuals or company's personal or confidential information is obtained and used by another person without their knowledge. Identity fraud happens when criminals use this information fraudulently to obtain credit, goods or other services in that person's or company's name.

HOW DOES IDENTITY FRAUD HAPPEN?

Every day you deal with thousands of pieces of information: reports, business plans, financial data, customer pricing, names and addresses, credit card details. Identity thieves will "raid" your rubbish bin to steal this information - they may even steal your bin bags to rummage through them at their own leisure. It's faster, easier and can be even more lucrative than burglary. To a fraudster the information you throw out is worth its weight in gold.

Information theft is one of the fastest growing crimes and continues to rise at an astounding rate. It's not only individuals that are putting themselves at risk - but also businesses and organizations putting their customers and employees at risk by not disposing of personal information securely.

All countries have data protection legislation in place to ensure that companies dispose of documents safely and securely. But businesses should also consider the prospect of damaging their business and losing customer confidence by not disposing of information securely and therefore putting people at risk.

Benefits of On-Site Shredding

• Ensure documents are disposed of safely and securely
• Protects your employee, customer and supplier information ensuring they have confidence in your company
• Increased security as documents do not have to be stored prior to disposal
• Convenient because you can shred documents when you need to rather than having to store them until they are collected.
• Increase internal compliance with document disposal policy because employees are more likely to shred if they can do it when they need to
• Cheaper than Off-Site shredding as ot only required a one off investment rather than continual payments