Office Document Strategies Blog

What is confidential Paper Shredding?

Posted by Linda Painter on Thu, Aug 26, 2010 @ 10:08 AM

Interesting Yahoo Question posed the other day. What is confidential Paper Shredding? The common answer seemed to be -" Once a paper Document was shredded it is nearly impossible to reassemble."
Nearly impossible but doable with a lot of patience and tape-if the document was shredded with a strip cut shredder. strip cut shredder  Depending on the width size of the strip cut- just like a jigsaw puzzle-if someone desperately wanted to - unlike Humpty Dumpty the document could be put back together again.
When purchasing a Shredder you need to know what is being shredded and just how confidential the data on the paper (or electronic media) is.  If it contains highly sensitive data- you need to get a Cross Cut Shredder- and the document will be shredded like confetti at a wedding. Cross cut shredders cut in different size "squares"- the smaller the "square" the higher the security value assigned to the shredder. 
You also need to know who is shredding the data. If you are using an in-house shredder- and most offices should have a Shredder- and a policy for what is to be shredded- and what paper can be safely placed in a recycle box.

If you use a shredding service then you need to know what level of security they are providing, and have some guarantees that your material is actually being shredded.

Now if you have really large volumes of shredding you might want to consider one of the ultimate in shredding devices, the Cyclone shredder....check it out on the video.  This people sized unit can really eat up your material and make shredding a simple task.

Linda P

Electronic Filing Legal  Is Electronic Filing Legal?  Find out in this presentation which outlines the Canadian experience.  Another way to secure your documents.

Topics: Document, Paper shredding, shredders