Shred-it: Why You Should Celebrate This Information Security Leader on Canada Day

Happy Canada Day!

In the document destruction business, Canada Day (or Canada’s official birthday) is an appropriate time to put the spotlight on Shred-it – this recognized global leader in secure document destruction got its start in Canada.

In fact, Shred-it was one of the first companies to provide mobile paper shredding services to workplaces.

The Shred-it story began in 1988 when the late Greg Brophy launched the company in Oakville, Ont., with one truck and one shredder. He financed the business with money he had earned renovating houses in college. Within three weeks, Shred-it’s mobile shredding services were in such demand that a second shredding truck had to be added… and the company grew from there.

By 1992, Shred-it was franchising and expanding into the United States, Hong Kong, and Argentina.

By 1998, Brophy’s mobile paper-shredding service was the largest in North America.   

Fast forward to 2014 and Shred-it has merged with Cintas Document Shredding, another industry leader in document destruction. Headquartered in Oakville, Ontario and with a U.S. head office in Cincinnati, Ohio, Shred-it now has a fleet of over 2,000 trucks and provides secure information destruction services in over 140 markets in 18 countries. With over 300,000 clients including the top intelligence and security agencies, Shred-it has become the world’s largest secure information destruction company.

Of course, the need for secure information protection is more important than ever.

According to Risk Based Security research, 2013 broke the previous all-time record for the number of exposed records caused by reported data breach incidents. There were 2,164 incidents reported during 2013 – and a record 822 million records exposed.

The cost to companies continues to rise too. The 2014 Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis, shows the average cost to a company was $3.5 million in US dollars and 15% more than it cost in 2013.

While Shred-it has made security and customer service top priorities, it has also become a trusted resource in information security. Here is a Canada Day checklist – and Shred-it’s best practices – for secure information disposal. Your document disposal partner should:

• Have experience in different industry sectors (healthcare, financial, insurance, government, legal, etc.).
• Customize document destruction to your business.
• Provide on-going information to customers about compliance trends, best practices such as a Shred-all policy, and legislation.
• Provide a secure chain of custody from supplied locked consoles for storing sensitive information to regularly-scheduled removal of documents by security-trained personnel to secure shredding using cross-cut technology.
• Issue a document of destruction after every shred.
• Recycle paper documents after they have been securely shredded.
• Provide e-media destruction services for the guaranteed permanent destruction of hard drives and electronic media as well.
• Organize Community Shred-it events where consumers can have their confidential documents shredded free of charge or for a small donation to a local charity.

Here is more information on secure document destruction.