Industry News

A series of focus groups and an online survey commissioned by the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID), based in Phoenix, reveals that many companies are not yet using an outside secure shredding supplier that probably should be.

Debra Pryor of Partners in Brainstorms (PIB), Phoenix, presented the survey and focus group results to attendees of the NAID Annual Conference, which took place in Phoenix in mid-May.

Some 509 business owners or managers completed an online survey formulated by NAID and PIB. Of the respondents, only 37 percent used an outside secure shredding contractor.

According to Pryor, among the sectors least likely to currently use a shredding firm, the education segment was at the top, with 92 percent of those respondents reporting that they do not shred or that they shred in-house. Additionally, only 83 percent of the retailers responding to the survey use a shredding service.

Contrarily, though, 89 percent of all survey respondents "are somewhat or very concerned about the protection of confidential information." The respondents were most concerned about protecting their employees and their customers from security breaches.

Respondents also consistently identified the safe handling of electronic information as a concern, with less than 10 percent of respondents claiming that their companies currently store and destroy such information properly. "Many [respondents] felt this is probably the biggest hole in the company where information could possibly be leaked," said Pryor.

Of respondents not using a secure shredding service, many indicated that they felt the volume of material they generated was too small to be of interest to a shredding firm or that the service would be too expensive.

Pryor urged secure shredding service sales managers to get the word out to potential small business customers that they can obtain document destruction services affordably.

The NAID Conference was held at the Arizona Biltmore Resort in Phoenix and was attended by more than 850 information destruction professionals and their suppliers.

RealTime Shredding Adds Business Access Codes

RealTime Shredding, a developer of self-service shredding kiosks based in Colorado Springs, Colo., has added business access codes to its kiosks’ functions.

The new feature makes it easier for retailers and corporations to incorporate the shredding kiosk into their standard operations and comply with HIPAA, FACTA and Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, says Amanda Verrie, RealTime Shredding president.

Companies and other organizations can assign and control up to 253 codes. By assigning codes to individual departments, divisions, offices or other units, businesses can track usage or implement an internal chargeback system, according to a press release from RealTime Shredding. Retailers, such as business and copy centers, can assign codes to individual business or consumer customers, making routine shredding more convenient.

Additional features of the business access code function include:

More information on RealTime Shredding is available from www.realtimeshredding.com.

 Illinois Company Becomes Citadel

Shred-It Inc. The Document Destruction Co., Westmont, Ill., has officially changed its name to Citadel Information Management.

Despite the change, the management of the company remains the same.

Donna Cooper, vice president and co-owner, says, "Our new name now reflects our complete line of services, including records storage and management, digital imaging, AAA NAID-Certified document destruction and consulting services."

Citadel is not in affiliated with Shred-It, the Canada-based mobile shredding franchise, and the name change helps to eliminate potential confusion caused by sharing similar names.

Paul Swenson, co-owner, president and CEO of Citadel, says, "We’re excited about our growth and look forward to many more years in this increasingly important industry."

Citadel also offers national service through Citadel Alliance, an affiliation program with other NAID and PRISM members.

Iron Mountain Acquires Australian Firm

Iron Mountain Inc., headquartered in Boston, has announced the acquisition of DigiGuard, a provider of data protection services in Australia and New Zealand. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Last October Iron Mountain entered the Pacific Rim for the first time through the acquisition of the Australian and New Zealand operations of Pickfords Records Management.

"Iron Mountain is committed to taking a leadership position in Australia and New Zealand," Bob Miller, executive vice president of Asia Pacific for Iron Mountain, says. "We will continue to build out our operations here and expand our portfolio of solutions for both our local and global customers. The addition of the DigiGuard services is an important step and we are excited to welcome the employees of DigiGuard into the Iron Mountain family," Miller says.

In operation since 1997, DigiGuard provides off-site data storage and IT risk mitigation services. DigiGuard has serviced and implemented successful solutions for large and small regional and global companies and operates in 14 markets throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Panel Addresses Issues in Marketing Shredded Paper

Hungry paper mills around the world will continue to buy bales of shredded paper, but if sellers want the best price they’ll need to find the right mill.

A panel discussion at the NAID (National Association for Information Destruction) Annual Conference, which was held in Phoenix in mid-May, featured comments from four brokers and buyers of scrap paper, all of whom agreed that shredded office paper has grown tremendously as pulping material in the past five years.

But the growth has included some problems along the way, including more and smaller contaminants that can cause headaches for mills and a lack of uniformity in mill specifications.

Even though uniform specifications might make paper trading easier, it may not be a realistic system for mills that have widely different pulping and screening equipment.

"Find the right mill partner; that leads to added value," said panel member Crawford Carpenter of The Newark Group, Cranford, N.J.

Broker Joe Jurden of Cook Paper Recycling, Kansas City, Mo., told attendees that different mills will have different tolerances for contamination and will pay different premiums for clean material.

Marc Forman of Harmon Associates, Jericho, N.Y., also urged attendees to "know and understand the mill you’re shipping to; know its capabilities and limitations."

Forman added that Harmon Associates has been taking measures to give shredding firms and recyclers who make the effort to produce cleaner, whiter bales of shredded paper a premium price.

While the size of the shreds can be a limiting factor for some mills, a consideration across the board for mills is the purchase of bales that are solid enough to be handled by forklifts and to make the journey via rail or truck. "Produce a bale with great integrity," said Jurden. "Poor bale integrity will get you in trouble [with the mill]," he added.

Sufficient communication between secure shredders, recyclers, brokers and mill buyers can help document destruction companies receive the best possible price for their paper bales by matching the bale with a mill that is prepared to deal with the level of contamination and color variation found within. Panel members agreed that the overall demand for baled shredded paper has been growing and will continue to grow.

Carpenter estimates that 90 percent of the office paper handled by the company’s recycling plants is now shredded paper, and that the company has seen a 300 percent increase in the amount of shredded paper that it handles in last last five years.

Forman said that the Georgia-Pacific Savannah, Ga., mill furnished by Harmon Associates has probably seen its office paper ratio shift from 90 percent sheet/10 percent shredded five years ago to almost the exact opposite today.

Regarding the future, Forman predicted that global demand will keep markets active. "There is going to be no problem moving your paper in the next five to 10 years," he stated.

The NAID Conference was held at the Arizona Biltmore Resort in Phoenix in mid-May.

CrossCut Secure Shredding Honored

CrossCut Secure Shredding, a document and product destruction company based in Hayward, Calif., has announced that it has received certification from the Bay Area (California) Green Business Program. The program recognizes the operational achievements of Bay Area companies that seek to reduce their impact on the environment.

"Helping our customers securely destroy their unwanted materials is our No.1 goal, and we take our responsibility very seriously," Bryan Hesterman of CrossCut Shredding says. "As the amount of sensitive data increases, environmentally responsible methods for securely destroying it are needed, and CrossCut is there to help California businesses. We’re reducing the environmental impacts of our operations and we want to help businesses do the same."

The Bay Area Green Business Program evaluates and certifies businesses that operate in a more environmentally responsible manner. Certified businesses comply with all environmental regulations and take steps to conserve natural resources and prevent pollution.

For CrossCut, much of the fuel used for its mobile shredding trucks is B99, a 99-percent biodiesel fuel made of processed vegetable oil. The company also says it offsets 100 percent of its electricity consumption with wind power and recycles all of its shredded materials.

NAID Elects Officers

Nate Campbell

During the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) annual conference in mid-May, members of the association elected new officers and directors.

Al Judkiewicz of Mobile Document Shredding, Lewisville, Texas, was named president, while John Miller of WesTex Document Inc., Lubbock, Texas, was named president-elect. Miller will become president of the association in 2007. Tom Simpson of AAA Certified Confidential Security Corp., Peoria, Ill., was named secretary, and Chet Hinton of On-Site Shred LLC, Garner, N.C., was named treasurer.

Elected to the board of directors were Nathan Campbell, Recall SDS of Newark, Calif.; Chris Isabell, iSecure Inc. of Grants Pass, Ore.; Thomas McGinnis, E-Data-Shred of Brockton, Mass.; Nate Segall, AccuShred LLC Toledo, Ohio; Ray Barry, Shred First LLC of Spartanburg, S.C.; and Ken Williams, Chicago Shred Authority.

Roger Williams, American Baler Co., Bellevue, Ohio, was elected to the board as vendor liaison.

Shredding Firm Partners with Illinois County Waste Agency

The Solid Waste Agency of Lake County and Records Management Inc., Mundelein, Ill., have partnered to offer free document shredding services.

The program, which began April 1, was developed by Records Management President Alan Josephsen and Peter Adrian, the Lake County recycling coordinator. Records Management offers the free service the first Saturday of every month from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., according to a report in the Waukegan News.

Speedscan Acquires Microview Ltd.

Speedscan has acquired the document management business operated by Australian company Microview Ltd. "This acquisition will increase our Australian customer base and give us the chance to introduce Microview’s clients to Speedscan’s wider range of solutions and services," Mark Josman, CEO of Speedscan, says.

Speedscan has operated in Australia for almost 10 years and is the Asia Pacific subsidiary of Data Impact Inc., a document solutions provider with more than 15 years of experience. The company provides an extensive range of outsourced document services, such as scanning, data entry and document hosting, combined with leading software technologies to craft innovative solutions for the archival, retrieval and distribution of business documents.

Microview has more than 25 years of experience in delivering innovative document solutions in Australia, using leading edge Scanning, COLD and other technologies.

2007 NAID-Canada Conference Set for Toronto

The 2007 National Association for Information Destruction (NAID)-Canada Conference is scheduled for Feb. 1-2, 2007, at the Marriott Bloor Yorkville in downtown Toronto.

In selecting the Marriott Bloor, NAID-Canada returns to the site of the 2006 event, which was the most successful in NAID-Canada’s history, according to the organization.

The 2007 NAID-Canada Conference will employ the same strategy as this year’s event by building a day of educational sessions for users of secure shredding services, according to the event’s planners.

More information is available at www.naidonline.org.

Indiana Law Requires Security Breach Notification

A new Indiana law requires companies to notify their customers of computer security breaches, according to a report from WTHR-TV (Indianapolis).

Once the law takes effect in July, businesses or database owners must notify affected Indiana residents of security breaches. In cases where more than 1,000 people are affected, the business must also notify credit bureaus, according to the report.

An Alaskan "Oops"

The city of Fairbanks, Alaska, inadvertently released dozens of employee Social Security numbers in mid-June when it failed to clean out an index-card cabinet before auctioning it off.

According to a report in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, a Fairbanks resident paid just $7.50 for a pallet of discarded city-owned material that included printer paper and a small index card cabinet with "460 4- by 6-inch cards, many of which list the names, birth dates, salaries and Social Security numbers of people employed by the city in the late 1970s."

Adding intrigue to the episode, the purchaser of the cabinet, identified as Candace Carroll, initially asked the city for $300,000 for the return of the index cards. According to the News-Miner, instead she subsequently sent the cards to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.