In modern business, a huge amount of data is generated, and as a business owner, you need to consider the security of this information. Most of this information is confidential, and if it falls into the wrong hands, the repercussions can be devastating. Although electronic data storage is in vogue, most of this data is in document form.
To protect your customers and employees, you need to hire a document destruction company to ensure that such information is secure. These professionals help prevent identity theft and will also comply with the law. From tax returns, employment records, bank statements to credit card details, all of these documents need to be shredded to prevent losses to the business.
While this may seem like any other ordinary day-to-day operation, there are some interesting facts that make it unique. Take a look at the following:
1. The story of the shredder
That fancy-looking machine in your office actually dates back to the 1900s, when Abbot Augusts Lowe patented the design. Unfortunately, he never lived to reap the rewards of this ingenious invention and mass production was not started at that time.
two. a nazi connection
When Hitler was about to come to power, the Nazi police were looking for any seditious material with propaganda that propagated any other idea. That’s when German engineer Adolf Ehinger invented another shredder to personally shred thousands of anti-Nazi propaganda that could have gotten him arrested.
3. The Watergate Scandal Connection
When an American president, Richard Nixon, began criticizing the Watergate scandal, there was a concerted effort to shred as much evidence as possible and this became the scandal’s main talking point. Of course, the cover-up never worked and Nixon had to resign.
Four. Gather Shredded Documents
Most early shredders assumed that no one would take the time to put all the shreds together, but in the 1979 takeover of the American embassy, Iranian revolutionaries changed all that. Information from the US embassy in Tehran was painstakingly pieced together over months, and the documents provided damning information. This completely changed the industry by adopting cross-cut shredders to avoid such mistakes.
5. Your garbage is public property
The decision of the Supreme Court in California v. Greenwood in 1988 changed the way people viewed this team. The need to keep information safe, even when it was in the dump, forced owners to start purchasing these machines to protect against identity theft and other breaches.