Tips to Ensure Document Security

Dealing with sensitive information is a norm for every business. There is a huge archive of information to be protected, from clients’ details to personnel information and company plans. Failure to protect information might lead to devastating legal and financial consequences for your business.

Therefore, it is extremely important that you have a secure data protection system. There are tons of ways to protect your data from unlicensed third parties. The method to be used depends on whether the data is electronic or hard copy.

General Tips to Ensure Tips to Protect Information

• Restricting access to sensitive information. Ensuring that only licensed individuals have access certain information is an excellent way to ensure that information is duly protected.
• Sharing sensitive information securely. Using an encrypted means to transfer data ensures that only licensed individuals can access the information contained therein.

In the event of moving physical documents, using a tracked service ensures that you can keep an eye on the data while in transit. Tracked services can also be held liable for any breach during transit.

• Educating your team about data security. As most security breaches are internal, educating your team about the importance of keeping data secure cannot be overemphasized.
• Ensuring that all team members lock away any document and turn off computer systems when not in use protects information from being accessed by unlicensed individuals.
• Having a backup for all data types.

 How to safely protect your Hardcopies

1.    Create a plan for data management

A solid data management plan to ensure the protection of documents is necessary, and such a plan would include:

• Having a complete inventory of all records. You can do this by accurately labeling all documents and folders.
• Determining the best way to manage and store your records.
• Creating a procedure for document recovery.
• Developing a document retention and destruction schedule.

2.    Take security precautions

After creating a concise data management plan, ensuring that access to sensitive documents is restricted is necessary to prevent on-site breaches. Security precautions that you can take are:

• Ensuring that sensitive documents are locked away.
• Using fire and security alert systems.
• Conducting regular audits.
• Destroying your records securely.

3.    Shred documents regularly and securely

Shredding confidential documents is a guaranteed way to protect your company from a data breach. Industrial shredders are invaluable in protecting documents from breaches. Stockpiling outdated documents and other related data increases your business’s chances of suffering a privacy breach.

Protecting electronic data

1. Encrypt sensitive data and only share passwords over secure networks.
2. Use digital signatures to further secure sensitive data.
3. Ensure that your old computer hard drives are unreadable.
4. Use a firewall.
5. Ensure you delete old files from cloud backup.

With the consequences of data breaches ranging from lawsuits to the complete shutdown of businesses, the importance of securing your data cannot be overemphasized. However, ensuring that you duly follow all safety procedures guarantees the safety of your data as well as your business.