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When choosing how to shred your documents you will want to consider shred size. The size of the paper shreds affects information security and possibly the cost of your service. Paper shredders use a standard classification system of P2 through P7 to determine the security of the paper being shred through the blades. Understanding the size of shred is the most important factor in deciding which machine is right for you needs. The smallest cut size falls under level P7 while the largest size is level P2.
Strip cut shredders, or P2 shredders, are the most productive but they are also the least secure. Levels Ps and P4 are the most common for businesses or home use. They are HIPAA compliant and do a great job protecting private information. P6 and P7 shredders are required for government agencies disposing of top-secret documents but a P7 shredder is needed for the most demanding top secret document destruction.
Which paper shredder security levels is the best shredder for you to buy? For destroying sensitive documents with personal information, medical information, financial information, or other confidential information, we recommend making use of a cross-cut shredder or a micro-cut shredder.
Shredders cut paper and optical media into smaller, unrecognizable pieces of paper. There are 2 basic types of shredding cut types, strip cut and cross cut: Different shredders shred paper into different sizes of paper. Strip-cut shredders are known as “strip-cut shredders” because of the thin strips they create as they shred paper.
Cross-cut shredders create crisscross cut pieces of paper that can provide more security to shredded documents. There are 6 levels of security, levels 1 and 2 are strip cut and levels 3 – 6 are crosscut; Levels 4-6 are small enough to be used for Government Departments. Level 3 is the most popular crosscut level used in commercial markets.
Your information is vulnerable. Protecting sensitive information is your best defence against identity theft. Identity theft happens when someone steals your personal information and poses as you to make financial transactions or carry out illegal activities in your name. The thief could ruin your credit, damage your reputation, commit fraud or other crimes in your name.
It’s crucial to take every precaution to safeguard all the important information at hand, from names and phone numbers to social security numbers, credit card numbers, bank account information, credit reports, financial records, addresses, employees’ and customers’ identities. Companies are held responsible for protecting information.
The best way to dispose of documents that contain your personal information is to shred them. Shredding sensitive information before throwing it out is the key to preventing it from falling into the wrong hands. Shredders maximize your security ensuring that the data cannot be reassembled.
When considering the purchase of a shredder the first crucial question is ask is what type of cut is most suitable to your shredding needs.
How easy reconstruction is will depend on:
After the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, which standardised the rules for processing personal data throughout Europe, the issue of data protection has become increasingly important.
Data is collected and processed in almost every organisation. It is essential to protect this sensitive data and to prevent unauthorised persons from gaining access to it at any time. However, not only the protection of actively used data must be guaranteed, but also the destruction and disposal of this sensitive data when it is no longer being used in accordance with the law and data protection regulations.
If breaches occur in the handling of personal data or due to its improper disposal, companies can incur severe fines.
That the subject of data protection also includes the correct destruction of these data is regulated by law. Documents that are in non-digital form must also be destroyed in accordance with these legal requirements, such as files and documents on data media.
Despite these legal requirements, the use of document shredders with the wrong security level or neglecting to use a document shredder at all are still amongst the most common data protection gaps. Documents with personal data do not belong in a waste bin, but in a GDPR-compliant document shredder.
If files and documents contain personal data, their destruction in accordance with data protection laws must be carried out without fail. The use of a GDPR-compliant document shredder is recommended for this purpose. Just shredding such documents at all goes some way towards GDPR compliance, but in general The Shredder Warehouse recommends a GDPR-compliant shredder with a security level of at least P-4. The amount of data to be destroyed, the sensitivity of the data and other criteria should also be considered when purchasing a suitable shredder with a suitable security level. Please feel free to call us on 087-195-2180 to discuss your requirements if you are unsure which security level is most appropriate for your application.
Cross Cut / Micro Cut – Shredders
Cross-cut shredders (also known as confetti-cut) create small particles of paper. These particles of paper vary in size from 10mm x 80mm to 1mm x 5mm. Cross-cut shredders are not able to shred documents as quickly as strip-cut shredders (of the same class) due to the extra cutting involved. Although they cannot shred documents as quickly, cross-cut shredders are able to provide more security to shredded documents than a strip-cut shredder. The shredder by-product has less volume, thus requiring less emptying and trips to the dustbin. Micro-cut; high-security micro-cut; and crypto cut are all also forms of crosscut with a very small particle size for greater security.
Strip Cut Shredders
Strip-cut shredders (also known as ribbon-cut) are known as “strip-cut shredders” because of the thin strips they create as they shred paper. These strips can vary in size from 12mm wide to 2mm wide. Strip-cut shredders require less cutting than cross-cut shredders. Because less cutting is required, strip-cut shredders can shred more documents at a time than cross-cut shredders (of the same class).
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