8 Tips for Physical Document Security in Your Business

Whether you run a big or small business, nothing changes when dealing with customer and employee information. You must have strict physical document measures and policies in place. We want to ensure physical documents are kept secure in your workplace, here are some tips:

1. Limit physical document access

Storage cabinets and storage rooms should be always locked, and have access limited to a selected few employees and individuals who need the information to do their work. Any external individuals entering the workspace should be closely monitored and have no access to important documents.

2. Create policies

It is important in any business to create policies. Document security policies should be put in place to ensure physical document safety, research the laws of how long your business needs to retain physical business information. Once the documents have reached their useful life, discard them immediately. Another way to ensure physical document safety is to enforce a clean desk policy, making sure that no employee leaves any important or confidential documents on their desks or at the printer.

3.Invest in a records management company

If you want extra security for your business documents, invest in a records management company. This is helpful as it store’s documents offsite, save office space and you know your documents are completely secure as these companies have high-quality security. The Document Warehouse is the perfect company to invest in for the best document management system. Our EDMS (Electronic Document Management Software) provides you with extra security and documents can be tracked using barcodes. The document status is updated when a document is added, moved, retrieved, boxed and/or sent offsite for efficient retrieval.

4.Shred unnecessary documents

It is important that all unnecessary documents are destroyed and once a document is no longer needed it is shredded immediately. Create a policy in your business that ensures that your employees shred ALL documents that are no longer in use. Shredding documents makes it more difficult to breach. The Document Warehouse offers a Secure Document Shredding and File Destruction Service, reducing the need for a sub-contractor or third party handling your customers’ secure data. Find out more here.

5. Train employees on document security

Your employees should be trained to handle confidential and exclusive information with care and respect. Here are some ways you can train employees:

Protect confidential information for the whole life cycle of the information

Shred all paper documents and lock up all sensitive documents when not in use

Share confidential information only with those who need to know

Have a written and signed, confidential non-disclosure agreement before disclosing confidential information to third parties

Report actual or suspected unauthorised access to management

6. Secure paper document storage

For all physical documents, you need to ensure that there is no risk of theft. It is important to lock all documents away at the end of the day or store them offsite for extra protection. The Document Warehouse offers high-quality security for physical documents in the office, you can store them in a variety of Turtlecases, they are fireproof, waterproof and have solid locking systems.

You can also make use of The Document Warehouse’s document management system and online management system to store your documents safely. These systems use FileRite© which is an onsite file management system that will manage and track your physical records through a user-friendly interface. It also manages the process of moving inactive files to an offsite storage facility eliminating data capture costs at a storage facility.

7.Always back up documents

This is the first rule when it comes to important documents – it is important to back up all documents. Physical documents should be scanned and saved on secure servers. The Document Warehouse’s EDMS (Electronic Document management software) can help, it uses advanced electronic document management software to provide effective document management solutions. This technology can manage data capturing, document scanning, and the retrieval of records therefore, your documents are kept safe and can be retrieved at any time.

8.Regular audit of policies

It is important that at least 3 times a year you perform an audit of your document security policies. You can ask the following questions when auditing:

Do you see any sensitive or confidential data at the printer area?
Are there any old documents that have passed their useful period that need to be shredded?
Are all physical documents locked away safely on a regular basis?
Are employees adhering to the clean desk policies?
Are unauthorized persons being closely monitored when entering the office or business?

If you find that employees are not adhering to these policies, it is important to provide training and enforce stricter measures for the security of your business’s physical documents.