No N.C. law requires businesses shred vital personal documents
North Carolina should pass a law punishing businesses that carelessly discard files with personal information, said applicants of a closed Charlotte temporary agency that left at least 20 boxes of records on the curb this week.
The boxes from Med Dent Solutions were filled with hundreds of applications for technical and clerical jobs in the medical field. The paperwork included names, addresses, and Social Security and driver's license numbers -- more than enough information for an identity thief to open credit card accounts or buy cars.
"There ought to be a law," said Keidra Avery, a Charlotte clinical assistant who said she got jobs through Med Dent during the past year. "If they can put my information out there like that on the street, what's the point of preventing identity theft."
No N.C. law requires destruction of records with vital personal information. A bill introduced in the House two years ago went nowhere after business interests objected. At least three states have shredding laws -- Georgia, California and Wisconsin.
Federal regulations require proper disposal of patient records by medical offices and customer information by financial institutions, but no other laws or rules govern other businesses.
Med Dent applicants said they expected the paperwork to be shredded and were surprised the agency broke no law.
"What a joke," said David Joseph of Charlotte, a surgical technician who said he submitted applications to Med Dent in 2001. "These guys made copies of everything, driver's license, Social Security card. They got enough information that I'm really worried. Something should be done."
While Med Dent applicants vented, lawmakers and law enforcement leaders made no promises on a shredding law.
U.S. Rep. Mel Watt, a Charlotte Democrat, said that federal and state lawmakers need to study whether laws are needed to require document destruction. "This reckless conduct is alarming," Watt said.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., backed ID theft prevention measures, including truncating credit card numbers on receipts that were part of a credit law passed last year. But the junior senator has no plans to tackle a shredding bill, a spokesman said.
N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper, who has made identity-theft prevention a top priority, said through a spokeswoman that he would study whether a shredding law is necessary.
Med Dent, in the city's Elizabeth neighborhood southeast of uptown, left the boxes on Louise Avenue Sunday afternoon as part of a records purge after the 14-year-old temp agency closed this month. The boxes were picked up by a city garbage truck Monday morning, Med Dent owner Mark Foreman said. Charlotte trash is taken to a landfill near Lowe's Motor Speedway in Cabarrus County.
Foreman said he did not think about people stealing the documents when he placed them in boxes stacked on the curb behind a row of trash cans. Foreman, who still has five years of employee application records for tax purposes, said he planned to take those documents to a professional shredding company next time. Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer