Sequoia Records Management

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WHY SHRED?

Records That Need Safe Destruction:

Customer Mailing Lists	Research & Development Data
Negotiable Documents	Contracts
Sales Forecasts	Meeting Notes
Customer Mailing Lists	Payroll Records
Negotiable Documents	Bids and Quotations
Sales Forecasts	Confidential Letters, Memos
Accounting Records	Financial Reports
Personnel Records	Medical Information
Budget Data	Expense Reports
Prospect Lists	Engineering Drawings
Micro Fiche	Credit Cards
Labor Estimates	Cancelled Checks
Production Reports	Legal Signatures
Inventory Reports	Security Holding Statements
Bank Statements	And More……….

Every Business Has Information That Requires Destruction.
All businesses have occasion to discard confidential data. Customer lists, price lists, sales statistics, drafts of bids and letters, even memos, contain information about business activity, which would interest any competitor. Every business is also entrusted with information that must be kept private. Employees and customers have the legal right to have this data protected.

Without the proper safeguards, information ends up in the dumpster where it is readily and legally available to anybody. The trash is considered by business espionage professionals as the single most available source of competitive and private information from the average business. Any establishment that discards private property data without the benefit of destruction exposes itself to the risk of criminal and civil prosecution, as well as the costly loss of business.

Stored Records Should Be Destroyed On a Regular Basis.
The period of time that business records are stored should be determined by a retention schedule that takes into consideration their useful value to the business and the governing legal requirements. No record should be kept longer than this retention period.

By not adhering to a program of routinely destroying stored records, a company exhibits suspicious disposal practices that could be negatively construed in the event of litigation or audit. Also, the new "Federal Rule 26" requires that, in the event of a law suit, each party will provide all relevant records to the opposing counsel within 85 days of the defendant's initial response. If either of the litigants does not fulfill this obligation, it could result in a summary finding against them. By destroying records according to a set schedule, a company appropriately limits the amount of materials it must search through to comply with this law.

From a risk management perspective, the only acceptable method of discarding stored records is to destroy them by a method that ensures that the information is obliterated. Documenting the exact date that a record is destroyed is a recommended legal precaution.