But, when it comes to keeping your workspace and equipment secure, working from home can often lull you into a false sense of security with its familiar surroundings and home comforts. In reality, you are still at risk of the security threats commercial offices are faced with.

Therefore, having security measures and best practices in place is essential to keeping yourself, your business and your clients protected.

Whether you run a business from home or are working from home due to the elevating coronavirus outbreak, here are our top tips on keeping your home office space secure.

1. Invest in physical security

Home security systems are among the most effective ways of keeping your home – thus your home office – secure. They are a great burglar deterrent and, if you do a bit of research and shop around, don’t have to cost you the earth.

Also, consider ways to make it harder for burglars. Installing a robust lock on your office door, choosing a room on the second floor as your office and purchasing a safe you can lock down are just a few simple ways to achieve this.

Putting these measures in place not only helps keep your assets protected. They can also save you money in the long run by keeping the cost of your insurance premiums down.

2. Keep confidential information secure

You are responsible for keeping the confidential details of your clients protected – even if you are working from home.

Ensure your sensitive documents don’t fall into the wrong hands by keeping them stored in a locked cabinet. When they’re not in use, keeping your devices locked away is also a good idea to keep them extra secure.

You could also consider fireproof, lockable storage if working from home is a long-term strategy. That way, your valuables and important documents are protected from more than just intruders.

3. Securely shred your sensitive data

Speaking of confidential documents, remember they need to be securely disposed of to prevent the risk of data theft. This may sound dramatic, but it’s important to remember that no matter where you work, no one is immune from identity thieves.

Domestic paper shredding services offer a great solution to destroying your unwanted confidential documents securely and efficiently.

Take Datashredders, for example. We don’t just offer secure shredding services to commercial offices. Our shredding trucks can come to your home, shred your confidential material and provide you with a certificate of destruction for added peace of mind.

We can also shred more than just paper, including laptops, hard drives and flash drives – something a domestic home office shredder can’t do!

4. Protect your digital data

It’s not just your physical documents that need to be secure, but your digital ones too.

Ensure you’re clued up on cyber threats and the preventative measures you can put in place to prevent them. This includes installing anti-virus software, regularly changing passwords and securing your wi-fi network.

Backing up your data is also very important. Use an external hard drive or online software regularly and you’ll have peace of mind that your work and data can be recovered following a cyber attack or system crash. Your IT department should be on hand to support you with all of this.

5. Keep work and personal devices separate

Owning two sets of everything might seem extravagant. But having devices, such as phones, laptops and PCs, that are used just for work and ones for general use is key to keeping sensitive work data secure.

Keeping your work devices separate also deters your family members from using your devices and unwittingly putting your digital security at risk.

What’s more, separate devices also make it more difficult for your business and personal accounts to cross over – something that’s handy to avoid any confusion, but also provides you with added security from cyber criminals.

Domestic shredding services

Datashredders can’t help with some of the pain points that come with working from home. But when it comes to securely disposing of your confidential data, we have an affordable, reliable and simple solution for you.

Meet compliance, save time and keep your sensitive information protected with Datashredders.

Get in touch today to discuss your requirements!

– Please note your individual home office security needs may vary, and you might wish to review other information relating to your specific requirements.

With the ever-increasing threat of identity theft and tightening of regulations, you know it’s a top priority. But, let’s face it, using the office shredder is not the most inspiring of tasks.

On the other hand, professional shredder services offer a much simpler, reliable and convenient way of keeping your data, stakeholders and reputation protected.

Securely disposing of your confidential documents is not the only benefit of partnering with a professional shredder company. Here are our top six reasons why outsourcing shredder services is the best decision you’ll make in 2020.

1. Meet GDPR compliance

Businesses face fines of up to 4% of their annual global turnover if an individual’s information is stolen. Therefore, ensuring confidential data – both electronic and physical – is disposed of securely is essential. Professional shredding services provide a simple, yet effective way of a protecting your data from nefarious third parties. This helps keep your business secure and GDPR compliant. Click here for more guidance on complying with GDPR requirements.

2. Maintain an audit trail

Whether your confidential waste is shredded on your premises or off-site, you will be issued with a certificate of destruction for your records. Having this audit trail shows that your business implements strict procedures to ensure the security of its sensitive data and is committed to protecting the privacy of its customers and employees. It can also be used as evidence that you’re adhering to the Data Protection Act, as well as the GDPR.

3. Destroy more than paper

An office shredder can only shred paper, whereas our state-of-the-art shredding machines can destroy everything from hard drives and mobile phones, to textiles and flash drives. What’s more, you don’t have to remove staples, paperclips or paper from binders and folders before your documents are shredded. Our machines can cope with these, saving you the time and effort of sorting out documents and equipment before they are securely destroyed.

4. Reduce your carbon footprint

Did you know that a shredding services provider can also help you achieve your business’ environmental goals? Outsourcing your shredding decreases the amount of waste you contribute to landfill because the paper is instead recycled. Here at Datashredders, we recycle 99% of our shredded paper. We also strive to collect from different clients in the same area on the same journey to save petrol and reduce the paper’s carbon footprint. Find out more about how we recycle here.

5. Save time and energy

There aren’t enough hours in the day – sound familiar? You know getting rid of confidential waste securely is essential but, let’s face it, using an office shredder can be a bit of a chore – not to mention time consuming. Hiring a professional shredding company to securely dispose of your documents is just one way you can streamline your processes and free up some of your precious time, allowing you to focus on more profitable tasks.

6. Keep confidential data secure

Businesses of all sizes having a duty of care to ensure their confidential data is handled securely. This includes the way it is destroyed. By outsourcing your shredding, you can be confident that your business’ personal information is kept protected. In most cases, Datashredders shreds your sensitive data on your premises. This means you can even witness the shredding take place for yourself – providing you with extra peace of mind.

Whether you’re looking for one-off shredding or a regular service, we can tailor our shredder services to meet the needs of your business. Get in touch today to find out what we could do for you.

However, knowing where to start and what to focus on can a daunting prospect. So, here are our 7 simple steps to help take the stress out of your pre-Christmas clear out.

1. Start early

No one wants to be rushing around clearing the office on the last day before the office closes for the holidays, so we recommend laying the groundwork at the beginning of December. Starting your pre-Christmas tidy up early will give you the chance to get organised and ensure there’s enough time for a thorough clear out, making the process less stressful overall.

2. Make a plan

Having a plan of action in place will also make the process less much stressful. Think about what your aims and priorities are. Look around. Which areas of the office will require more attention? Will you need to arrange for removal of old furniture or confidential data? Having a plan, even a loose one, will give you a clearer idea of where to start and the scale of the job.

3. Declutter your office

The best place to start is to focus on one area of your office. Be it a cupboard of old equipment, a particularly crammed filing cabinet or the kitchen area, start at one end of your office and work your way round. Sort items into pile of things you don’t need, things that can go straight in the bin, things that can be recycled, things that need to be destroyed securely and things that need a home. This includes anything from paperwork to old furniture. How about selling items that work but you no longer need? The money you raise could go towards drinks at the office Christmas party!

4. Clear off your desk

Use the same process as step number three and sort out the items from your drawers and top of your desk into piles. Having your own area tidy and organised will put you in the right frame of mind – and it will hopefully encourage your employees to follow suit! If you haven’t done so already, implement a clean desk policy. Not only does this improve the overall tidiness of the office and boost productivity, but it’s also a great way to safeguard your business’ confidential information.

5. Revise your filing system

Sort through your folders in filing cabinets and cupboards and ensure that they’re not only organised in a way that suits you – by subject matter, date or alphabet, for instance – but they’re also documents you actually need. Use this time to consider what paperwork you can store digitally. By digitalising some of your documents, you can get rid of some files and folders, freeing up masses of space in your cabinets. Remember to carry out regular back-ups if you are storing files on your computer!

6. Destroy personal data securely

Now you have piles of confidential documents and data storage devices to get rid of, it’s important that these are disposed of securely. Partnering with a professional shredding company is a cost-effective and simple way to do this. Here at Datashredders, for instance, we offer one-off visits or regular office shredding services to destroy your sensitive data on your premises, providing you with extra peace of mind.

7. Share the load

The onus of clearing out and organising the office shouldn’t be placed solely on the office manager. Make sure everyone gets involved and is responsible for, at least, clearing their own desks. By delegating work and making sure that everyone is doing their part, the task of clearing out your office will be much easier to plan and accomplish.

Planning a pre-Christmas office clear out? Get in touch today for more information on our secure onsite office shredding services! 

What will a deal with the EU mean for the UK and GDPR?

Nobody can say for sure while the deal is still being worked on, but it is difficult to imagine significant changes to the UK’s data protection regulations being made as part of any deal.

Given that GDPR law currently applies in the UK and will do so until our date of departure, the most likely outcome is that an “adequacy decision” will be made (or may have already been made behind closed doors) regarding the UK’s level of data protection. An adequacy decision made in a country’s favour means that the EU views that country has having an adequate level of data protection, and businesses operating within that country thus do not present a risk to EU consumer data and can be dealt with in the same way as EU countries. The UK would join countries like the USA, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland and Japan on this list.

The previous government’s position was that a “legally-binding data protection agreement” may be more appropriate than a simple adequacy decision, which would see the UK retaining a seat on the European Data Protection Board, but it is unknown whether this remains a possibility under the new administration.

What will a no-deal Brexit mean for the UK and GDPR?

While a no-deal Brexit would, in theory, allow the UK to create its own divergent set of data protection regulations, the Information Commissioner’s Office states that “if we leave the EU without a deal, most of the data protection rules affecting small to medium-sized businesses will stay the same”, and that “the UK is committed to maintaining the high standards of the GDPR (…) and the government plans to incorporate it into UK law after Brexit.”

Whilst this means in the medium term things will remain the same, the immediate aftermath of a no-deal Brexit would see EU law, including the data protection act, cease to apply overnight. The government’s advice in this situation is to ensure any business’ contracts that involve receiving data from the EU or EEA (the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) countries “include Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) or other Alternative Transfer Mechanisms (ATM) to ensure that you can continue to legally receive data from the EU/EEA.” The advice also states businesses “may need to designate a representative in the EEA.”

With regard to sending customer data from the UK to the EU/EEA, the government advises that there is no preparation required and UK businesses will be able to legally send data to the EU, EEA and the thirteen countries who’ve had adequacy decisions made by the EU in their favour.

If your business is part of a multinational with other branches of the business remaining in the EU/EEA, the government advises that you “may be able to rely on binding corporate rules (BCRs)”.

If your business doesn’t share data with businesses in the EEA, you won’t need to do anything. It is always a good idea, however, to remain aware of EU and UK data protection law and any divergences which begin to appear between them. Do this, and should you start to expand your operation to include dealings with EU and EEA countries, you can remain confident of your compliance with all data protection law.

Of course, the easiest and safest way to ensure compliance with any data protection regulations is to get in touch with Datashredders to arrange a one-off or recurring shredding visit. Fill in the form on our contact us page, dial the number at the top of this page or email info@secretsourcerer.com to find out more.

GDPR hasn’t been a major talking point since a little over a year ago. That was when the new regulations kicked in, and most breathed a sigh of relief as it meant the emails from sites they’d signed up to years ago asking for continued consent to use data stopped.

Whilst the regulations threatened major fines, no stories of businesses using our data improperly emerged, and thus no punishments were given – until now. This week, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) dished out the first two fines of the GDPR era to British Airways and the Marriott hotel group.

So, how heavy were these fines, and what were they given for?

British Airways – GDPR fine £183m

Hackers redirected traffic from BA’s website to a fraudulent version, allowing them to harvest the data of around half a million customers. The ICO criticised BA’s poor online security, which left data thieves able to harvest the names, email addresses and bank details of its customers. The eye-watering £183,000,000 fine – set to be disputed by BA – constitutes 1.5% of the company’s annual turnover. What really ought to shock other big businesses into taking data protection seriously is that the fine constitutes less than half of the maximum GDPR fine, which is 4% of a company’s turnover. In this case, the maximum fine would have approached an incredible half a billion pounds.

Marriott – GDPR fine £99.2m

Marriott’s data breach included the personal information of some 30 million customers of Starwood, a rival hotel chain absorbed by Marriott a few years back. It was ruled that Marriott had failed to conduct sufficient checks on the security of Starwood’s systems, leaving its historic customers vulnerable to data theft.

It’s too early to say whether the enormous fines handed to British Airways and Marriott will be the standard going forward. The ICO may have chosen to hand out by far its biggest fines ever to show big business that customer data protection is to be taken very seriously indeed, flexing its muscles to show off just how much more powerful it has become under GDPR. For comparison, the previous record fine for a data breach pre-GDPR was the £500,000 charged to Cambridge Analytica in 2018. The fine given to British Airways beats the previous record by a factor of 367.

If businesses weren’t taking GDPR and customer data protection seriously before, you can bet they are now.

If your business is holding onto customer data, whether on paper or old laptops and hard drives, check that you have continued permission to be doing so – all customers must have given their consent by May 2018. Anything that you don’t have permission to be holding should be destroyed, and that’s where we come in. View our shredding services section to find the right service for you.

Regular shredding and data destruction should form part of your company’s data protection policy, along with reviews into your business’ digital security. Failure to have a proper data protection policy in light of GDPR could result in your business’ wallet becoming a whole lot lighter, as British Airways and Marriott found out to their chagrin this week.

For the majority of our domestic shredding customers, the introduction of GDPR took the form of a barrage of emails from long-forgotten sites and businesses in the build-up to May 25. Businesses spent much of the year rewriting privacy policies and preparing their systems for the new regulations, as well as carrying out data destruction after May 25 for users who opted to withdraw their consent for these companies to continue holding their data.

Can we expect similar earth-shaking changes in the world of data protection in 2019?

Brexit
At the time of writing the form, if any, Brexit will take is unclear, so it’s difficult to say for sure what data protection law in the UK will look like. GDPR is an EU law, so technically the UK could stop adhering to it – but given that the EU forbids data-sharing with third countries that do not have “adequate levels of data protection”, this is highly unlikely. If you currently do business with the EU and hold data on European citizens, the best course of action is to continue as though nothing is changing.

Greater public awareness
News stories around data protection law and companies who breach are becoming more abundant, and with that public awareness and concern about data privacy is growing. Usually, these stories focus on serious breaches by enormous companies such as Google, Amazon and Facebook, but that doesn’t mean small and medium-sized businesses should become complacent. Customers and potential partners are becoming more likely to check a business’ reputation for maintaining privacy before working with or buying from them – and with that, they’re becoming more likely to avoid businesses who have a reputation for anything less than total compliance with data protection law.

Sanctions to begin – and grow
Despite GDPR coming into force on May 25, the period since has been one of complaint collection and investigation, rather than punishment. But that’s all set to change, with the first GDPR fines and sanctions set to be imposed in 2019. The maximum fine for a breach of GDPR legislation is €20 million or 4% of a business’ global revenue – whichever is higher – but the initial sanctions aren’t likely to reach that level. If the European courts deem the new regulations aren’t being taken seriously enough, or repeat offences occur, expect punishments to become harsher.

While 2018 was a huge year of change for data regulations (GDPR was the first major change in data protection law since 2000), 2019 isn’t likely to see the same degree of upheaval. What is certain is that conversation and concern about data protection isn’t going anywhere. If your business has been slow to destroy a stock of confidential customer data that you’re no longer allowed to retain, our onsite commercial shredding service can help. Just give us a call and we’ll visit your premises, shredding paper documents, laptops, hard drives, data disks and more onsite, and issuing you with a Certificate of Destruction upon the job’s completion, allowing you to start 2019 confident in your compliance.

Seems like ancient history, doesn’t it? We can therefore safely say that 2000’s data protection laws bear little resemblance to what’s needed in 2018.

What does it mean for my business?
The key change to the law is that businesses who collect user data will be forced to be far more explicit about what the user is signing up to, and how and why their data will be used (including the sale of data to third parties).

Should somebody withdraw their consent for a business to hold their data, the information must be permanently deleted from the business’ records.

The sort of changes business owners need to be making right off the bat are:

• Notify all users whose data you hold of changes to your data privacy policy
• Seek consent from users whose data you hold to continue doing so – contrary to popular belief, this is not a legal necessity as long as the terms with which users signed up with you are consistent with those required post-GDPR. If they aren’t, then destroy the data of any users who withdraw their consent.
• Amend any areas of your website or any other means you use to collect user information to ensure 100% clarity on the data you’ll be storing, how it will be used and how long you’ll be storing it for.

If you’re holding data on paper, laptops or hard drives for users who’ve withdrawn their consent, this will need to be destroyed. Our commercial shredding service can help here – we’ll visit your premises and shred everything onsite, issuing you the legal safeguard of a Certificate of Destruction upon completion.

What does it mean for me as an individual?
As everybody you’ve ever given your details to has likely emailed you asking for permission to continue holding them, at the very least it’s a great opportunity to clear up your email subscriptions!

You’ll also be able to demand a copy of any data a business holds on you. The business in question must provide this in full in an easily accessible and digestible format within 30 days.

If you no longer wish for a company to hold your data, you may withdraw your consent at any time. The data holder is required to destroy that information permanently. Legally, the business has to do this anyway once it is no longer necessary to hold the data for the purposes stated when you gave consent.

The newest and perhaps least-discussed benefit for data subjects that will come into place on May 25^th is the right to data portability. This is similar to the aforementioned right of the individual to demand a copy of all data a business holds on them, in that the right to data portability also allows the individual to demand all of their data be transferred to another service provider. This change should, in theory, make it much easier and faster to switch energy provider, bank, social media platform – you name it!

Are you a member of the public who has acquired all the data a business holds on you and want to see it destroyed? No problem! Just use our domestic shredding service. We’ll visit your home and collect paper records and hardware containing your confidential data, rendering them completely irretrievable.

Whether you’re a business holding and using customer data on a daily basis or the subject of that data, everything changes on May 25^th. Fines for non-compliant businesses of up to €20 million or 4% of a business’ global turnover (whichever is greater) show that this isn’t some meaningless tweak to current regulations. So ensure you’re on the right side of the new laws, or are taking full advantage of the new rights GDPR grants data subjects, by using our data destruction services today.

At Datashredders, we’ve got equipment that might be able to help. Question is: will it shred?

It certainly will! Our machines are able to shred a hard drive into tiny fragments, utterly destroying any data held within. If you have one or more hard drives that you’d like shredded, simply fill in the form on our contact us page, call 0808 223 8945 or email info@secretsourcerer.com.

100% Laptop Security

The only way to ensure complete security when a laptop is coming to the end of its life is by destroying it – but surely a humble paper shredder couldn’t destroy a laptop?

Wrong! Drop a laptop into one of our shredding machines and it’ll make light work of your confidential information, rendering it truly inaccessible.

To get in touch with Datashredders regarding laptop shredding or the disposal of any other sensitive items, simply use the form on our contact us page, call 0808 223 8945 or email info@secretsourcerer.com.

Our Lindner Micromat 2000 paper shredder is one of the most advanced shredding machines on the market, shredding documents into fragments no larger than a postage stamp. Don’t worry about separating paper from metal if you’re giving us old business documents and files; shredding staples and binders is a doddle for this state-of-the-art machine. We can provide secure waste containers for any paper shredding you may have, and 99% of our shredded paper is recycled – meaning that by employing Datashredders, you can be confident that your business is compliant with environmental legislation.

Whether you’ve got years of business paper to shred, stacks of old newspapers and magazines you need rid of, or need some cardboard cleared out, we can help. To enquire about our paper shredding services, simply fill in the form on our contact us page, call 0808 223 8945 or email info@secretsourcerer.com.