NAID Briefing - A Fine Situation

You may not realize it, but something occurred in 2007 that will forever change the secure destruction industry. I say that you may not realize it because it only recently dawned on me. I think I missed it because there was something gradual and subtle about it. Now that I reflect on the year as a whole, this change seems not at all gradual or subtle.

Simply put, 2007 saw more fines and charges issued against organizations for discarding undestroyed materials than ever before. And, I don’t mean in any prior year. I mean in the biblical sense, as in the history of mankind.

Georgia’s shred law produced a few fines in 2003, but that enforcement effort fell off quickly. The Texas Attorney General filed a few charges in 2006, but that was pretty much it.

In 2007, on the other hand, we saw about a half a dozen charges brought by the Texas AG. The Indiana AG brought charges against a host of national and local pharmacies for discarding prescription and other personal information. The Ohio AG brought charges against a mortgage company for casually discarding personal information. The state of Michigan fined a hospital operator $1 million for improperly discarding patient information. In the closing weeks of the year, the Federal Trade Commission issued its first fine for casual disposal of personal information. To emphasize the momentum the issue seems to be gaining, I should remind readers that most of this happened in the last six months.

A giant seems to have awoken. Enforcement officials seem to have finally concluded that improper disposal will not be tolerated.

As further evidence of this point, a spokesperson for the Arizona Attorney General recently publicly requested that incidents of improper disposal be immediately reported to the office for investigation and possible prosecution.

I don’t know about you, but if the closing months of 2007 are any indication, I expect 2008 to be a interesting year for our industry. n