Professional Document Shredder
When and how to shred paper documents
The protection and preservation of privacy with the entry into force of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 has become an increasingly important issue for companies, which not only have to deal with data management, but also with its destruction.
Document preservation is not only a necessity for companies, but it is a real legal obligation and therefore all businesses are required to preserve certain types of documents for a certain period of time, let’s look at some examples:
- 1 year for subscriptions and insurance payments;
- 2 years for tax receipts (also valid as a guarantee);
- 3 years for car tax stamps, invoices and receipts from artisans;
- 5 years for tax and VAT payment receipts, rent instalments, utility bills, condominium expenses, IMU bills, fines;
- 10 years for invoices for renovation expenses, garbage tax, bank statements, bank transfers and current account payments.
Once the preservation is no longer necessary, the company can proceed with the destruction phase by complying with the regulations and avoiding phenomena such as bin raiding, which consists of searching in waste containers for a company’s, or a person’s, paper documentation to find information useful for data and identity theft.
In the age of COVID-19, the amount of information concerning companies and persons, their movements and acquaintances has increased and involves many activities that were not previously subject to special obligations.
In the guidelines provided by the government for the management of the Coronavirus emergency, there is a part dedicated precisely to the certified deletion of data and which, in the case of paper documents, requires the owner to clean up the archives by destroying the information collected using a professional document shredder.
The best document shredder for your needs
Document shredders, or paper shredders, are professional machines used to cut and destroy sheets of paper, discs or smart cards. They are commonly used in offices and professional environments to secure sensitive data and protect privacy.
A good way to choose the right professional paper sh redder for your business is to think about how many people will use it, for how long per day and for how many documents.
For example, for a small/medium sized business of 10 people that shreds about 20 sheets at a time fairly frequently, our advice is to opt for the X8 HSM document shredder.
If, on the other hand, the business is larger and involves a larger number of people, with bulky documents and the office paper shredder is used on a regular basis, then our recommendation is for the Professional Large Volume Document Shredder P-5 level with 150-sheet magazine SECURIO AF150.
Another thing to consider when choosing the best document shredder for your business is the security level given by the size of the strip or fragment produced by the machine. The minimum level is DIN S1, which corresponds to a strip cut of a few centimetres, while DIN S5 is the maximum level of security and involves very small fragments.
Businesses such as notaries and lawyers who have to pay special attention to the security level of sensitive stored data are better off opting for high security tools such as the P5 level document shredder with 300-sheet magazine SECURIO AF300.
Whereas for activities that are less exposed to handling sensitive data, a practical and inexpensive tool may be more advisable.
Options that can be evaluated in a document shredder areanti-jamming, energy saving and diversity of shredding materials.
Title H2: Covid-19: Handling of customers’ personal data
The Prime Ministerial Decree of 17 May 2020 and the Relaunch Decree to deal with the epidemiological emergency stipulate that the resumption of economic and production activities must take place in compliance with the protocols or guidelines adopted by the regions.
Restaurants, tourist activities, bathing establishments and beaches, hairdressers, beauticians, swimming pools and gyms must collect data on visitors and customers with the obligation to keep the attendance list for a period of 14 days.
Once the data retention period has elapsed, the owner must schedule a periodic cleaning of the paper and computer archives by deleting the data collected.
Pursuant to Regulation (EU) 679/2006, it is necessary for the business to be equipped with a professional paper shredder or document shredder in order to permanently delete the data in the paper files.
On the other hand, the destruction of hard disks, USB sticks, CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs requires the destruction of the medium, while virtual disks and clouds require data deletion certification from the service provider.
Didn’t find the shredder you were looking for? Discover our entire range: Document Shredders