The number of micro businesses in the UK has soared in recent years.

In fact, they account for 94% of all businesses, a 2017 survey by Vistaprint found.

In 2015, official statistics showed there were 5.15 million micro businesses in the UK, that’s businesses employing less than 10 people. Although many were run by solo entrepreneurs, more than a million of them were employers.

Little surprise, then, that there has also been a boom in outsourcing in recent years.

Micro business owners know they can’t do everything themselves.

They have been outsourcing marketing, administration, human resources, social media, and IT support.

If your business is part of this outsourcing boom, building trust with potential clients is key.

So, having systems in place to ensure you deal with their data securely is a vital part of ensuring your prospective clients don’t find a different provider.

Human resources

Dealing with clients’ employees means there will be lots of confidential letters and files which must be kept for a specified period by law.

However, once this period is up, you need to ensure your confidential paper documents, and the old hard drives containing digital versions of these files, are shredded securely.

Outsourced human resources companies exist on their reputations for confidentiality. Not only could a data breach spell disaster for your business, it could be disastrous for your client’s business, too.

Marketing and social media

No business wants their marketing or social media plan to fall into competitors’ hands.

So, outsourced marketing companies should be conscious of dealing with client data securely. Confidential waste containing marketing plans, details of individual employees, and financial projections should be shredded securely.

Administration

Virtual assistants and other outsourced administrators deal with so many confidential documents.

From business plans, accounts, and company bank statements to travel arrangements, personal banking details for company employees and directors, phone numbers, and email addresses.

Many VAs sign non-disclosure or confidentiality agreements with their clients, so protecting data is a huge part of the service.

Having a secure shredding service on hand to deal with confidential waste – and old hard drives when you upgrade your computers – is a vital part of protecting a VA business.

IT support

Ensuring your old hard drives in PCs and laptops, old phone SIM cards, USB sticks, and image cards are destroyed securely is one of the best ways to protect your clients’ data.

Despite the idea that we’re moving towards paperless offices, there are still hard copies of contracts, bills, invoices, and supplier lists to contend with, too.

So, when it comes to outsourcing, why not take a leaf out of your clients’ books and do a little of the same – outsource your own confidential waste shredding!

Why you should choose Taclus Confidential – A South Wales secure shredding company

We offer confidential paper waste and hard drive destruction services at affordable prices.

Taclus Confidential holds the accreditations for ISO 9001:2015 for quality management and ISO14001:2015 for environmental management and has been certified by independent auditors IQS for both.

Taclus has also been selected as the confidential waste management partner for Keep Wales Tidy.

If you need advice on dealing with the secure destruction of confidential waste, call our friendly and efficient team on 02920 676 714, or email [email protected]

Is your business a contender when it comes to dealing with confidential waste? Take our quick quiz to find out…

Q1: It’s time for a major clear-out of your office. Do you…?

1. Get the recycling bags out. There’s no time to check whether any of the waste you’re throwing out could identify anyone personally.
2. Ask a member of staff to shred confidential waste paper and get them to take old USBs and image cards to the local waste transfer station.
3. Look for a confidential waste company on Google, check out the cheapest, and get them to handle and destroy your waste. Get certificates of destruction. Send them your old media including USBs and hard drives too.
4. Call your ISO-accredited confidential waste service, order in lockable consoles and confidential waste recycling bags, and ensure your waste is separated into confidential and sensitive, with sensitive waste being locked away until collection day.

Q2: You’re upgrading your office computers. What do you do with the old ones?

A: Delete the files on them and take them to your waste transfer station or donate them to charity.

B: Use online programs to shred sensitive files, because deleting them means you’ve just deleted the directory to find them. They are still on there somewhere and someone with the knowledge could find them. Then, get the hardware recycled or donated to charity.

C: Send the hard drives to a confidential waste shredding company for secure shredding, then recycle the old hardware or donate the computers to charity. Get a certificate of destruction for your audit trail.

D: Your confidential waste company is ISO-accredited, so you know they handle that waste to the best standards in the industry. They shred your hard drives, give you a secure audit trail to comply with GDPR, and you can donate or recycle your hardware with peace of mind.

Q3: There’s an investigation into a data breach, and your documents are involved in the probe. Do you…?

A: Panic – you’re not sure whether they were destroyed securely and worry they may be the source of the breach.

B: Ask your staff if they complied with the rules you set, and keep your fingers crossed that they did.

C: Know your documents were sent for secure shredding. That means you’re OK, doesn’t it? You just need to find out if you had a certificate to prove that…

D: Reply quickly to the investigators that your documents were destroyed securely, that they were handled by a company with the highest standards which is ISO compliant, and that you have an audit trail of certificates to prove it. Peace of mind!

MOSTLY As: You’re the England of confidential waste protection. There’s plenty of talent, on paper you should be OK, but something often seems to go wrong. It’s time to go back to basics to ensure your confidential waste is handled and shipped securely, shredded and recycled in a way to protect your clients and employees, and you don’t fall foul of GDPR.

MOSTLY Bs: You’re like Portugal. You have one star player and a solid defensive block! But things could go horribly wrong if all the team aren’t aware of the threats from unusual places to lose data such as image cards for cameras. Plus, if your confidential waste handling systems are all in your head, and not in a plan for all your staff, how can they make them happen?

MOSTLY Cs: You’re Denmark. You started out with some problems but are improving fast and understand what you must do to comply with GDPR and keep your client and staff data safe. You may not be 100% there yet, but you’re well on your way. Take time to review your plans and systems for your confidential waste on a six-monthly basis.

MOSTLY Ds: You’re Germany. Efficient, clinical, you know what it takes to make the grade. There will be no lost data on your watch and you’re always planning to cope with the next threat. You’ll review your confidential waste arrangements several times a year, have a solid audit trail of documents proving your waste was handled correctly, and a process in place to ensure you know where your documents are at all times. We take our hats off to you!

Want to be the Germany of dealing with your confidential waste? We can help! We’re an affordable and secure shredding service in South Wales. If you need advice on dealing with the secure destruction of confidential waste, call our friendly and efficient team on 02920 676 714, or email [email protected]

Why you should choose Taclus Confidential – A South Wales secure shredding company

We offer confidential paper waste and hard drive destruction services at affordable prices.

Taclus Confidential holds the accreditations for ISO 9001:2015 for quality management and ISO14001:2015 for environmental management and has been certified by independent auditors IQS for both.

Taclus has also been selected as the confidential waste management partner for Keep Wales Tidy.

At the start of every financial year, it’s important to review your confidential documents and decide which need to be destroyed securely.

This is especially relevant this year, as we all gear up to the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation on May 25. See more about that here.

It’s best to carry out this review BEFORE you start the office Spring clean.

In the middle of a major clear out, confidential and non-confidential documents can become mixed up.

So, separate them carefully.

Here are just some of the documents you should be checking this Spring:

1. Old staff records– Staff may have moved on several years ago, yet their records may be retained for legal or contractual reasons. It’s recommended that details are held for five years and HMRC may ask to see a past employee’s financial details up to three years after they leave. Once those reasons no longer apply, it’s time to dispose of the records responsibly. They contain information which may be useful to identity thieves such as names, phone numbers, addresses, National Insurance numbers, and bank account details. They often contain details of next of kin, too.
2. Customer details– This may be letters from or to customers, copies of old orders or receipts, or refunds. Often, they will contain names, addresses, and phone numbers, and some may contain banking details. All this data could cause your business major problems if it falls into the wrong hands.
3. Supplier information– From order forms and receipts to letters, you may be holding onto documents with a great deal of information about your suppliers. This must be processed carefully.
4. Your business plans– You may have old versions of your plans which contain confidential projections, details of your cashflow and revenue, and details about people who have significant control in your company. They would prove useful to competitors and identity thieves alike.
5. Headed notepaper or business cards – Branded items like this could be used in frauds or to poach your clients. They need to be destroyed securely.
6. Old diaries and meeting notes – Diaries often contain names, phone numbers, and details of appointments, and meeting notes can contain details of business plans, disciplinary matters, or confidential information about employees.

What should you do?

It’s time to look at an affordable, secure confidential shredding service which will free up the time of your staff, save you money, and ensure you have an audit trail to comply with the coming data protection legislation.

Why you should choose Taclus Confidential – A South Wales secure shredding company

We offer confidential paper waste and hard drive destruction services at affordable prices.

Taclus Confidential holds the accreditations for ISO 9001:2015 for quality management and ISO14001:2015 for environmental management and has been certified by independent auditors IQS for both.

Taclus has also been selected as the confidential waste management partner for Keep Wales Tidy.

Are you looking for an affordable and secure shredding service in South Wales? If you need advice on dealing with the secure destruction of confidential waste, call our friendly and efficient team on 02920 676 714, or email [email protected].

Dental practices hold a great deal of sensitive information on paper and on computers.

As we gear up for the huge changes the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will bring in May, with its potential for far higher fines for an organisation which breaches it, now’s the time for dental practices across South Wales to review how they deal with their information.

Now’s the perfect time to decide whether to outsource your secure shredding.

Here are 7 excellent reasons you should consider using a company like Taclus Confidential:

1. Patient records – There are many sensitive items on a dental patient’s records. From the history of their treatment to their medication, addresses, phone numbers, and notes about potential future treatment. It is still common for many practices to hold paper records, and if they fall into the wrong hands this could result in a practice getting into serious trouble with the health authorities.

2. Appointment cards – This could give identity thieves and burglars information about patients such as their name, address, and when they will be out of their homes for dental appointments.

3. Out-of-date advice pamphlets – Medical advice is often updated, and pamphlets become out of date. It’s important that patients get the most current advice, so secure destruction of old pamphlets will ensure they won’t leave with the wrong literature.

4. Staff rotas – You need your staff to be secure, and someone unscrupulous getting hold of their shift patterns could cause them problems. Shredding them is the answer.

5. Old hard drives – A great deal of data could be left on old hard drives when you upgrade computers and laptops. It’s important this is destroyed correctly. Simply wiping the hard drive can often just mean wiping the sitemap, and the information is still on there in some form. The best way to ensure your security is shredding the hard drive.

6. Other media such as phone SIMs, USB sticks, and image cards – It’s amazing how much information we have on our smartphones, USB sticks, and image cards these days. They should be treated in the same way as a computer and they should be shredded securely.

7. Saving your staff time – It can take hours to fill a few bags with shredded items if you’re shredding it yourself. It can also be far too much for your office shredder! They often can’t cope with the amount of shredding which needs to be done in a modern dental practice. So, it’s both cost-effective and a good use of your employees’ time if you outsource this to a secure provider with a proven track record.

Why you should choose Taclus Confidential – A South Wales secure shredding company

We offer confidential paper waste and hard drive destruction services at affordable prices.

Taclus Confidential holds the accreditations for ISO 9001:2015 for quality management and ISO14001:2015 for environmental management, and has been certified by independent auditors IQS for both.

Taclus has also been selected as the confidential waste management partner for Keep Wales Tidy.

Is your dental practice looking for an affordable and secure shredding service in South Wales? If you need advice on dealing with the secure destruction of confidential waste, call our friendly and efficient team on 02920 676 714, or email [email protected]

It’s the most magical time of the year. For South Wales retailers, it’s also the most stressful!

The average Briton spent £748 on Christmas in 2016.

Research by Statista showed that the average person spent:

• £134 on clothes and accessories
• £107 on toys
• £299 on gadgets and technology
• £83 on video games
• £92 on entertainment or party supplies
• £251 on mobile devices

Other categories included gift cards, cars, sporting goods, experiences, and the home.

Whether you’re an online retailer or a High Street store owner, this time of year can feel brutal.

Busy stores can see hundreds of people visiting every day. Online stores will see a spike in orders.

It can feel like you and your staff don’t have a minute to do anything other than process orders, ring up purchases, or put more stock out to display.

That’s before we get into the post-Christmas sales.

Like any other business owner, retailers should be looking to outsource functions which eat into the time they and their staff have to deal with their customers and core business.

One of the simplest ways of doing that would be to outsource the shredding of confidential waste paper and media such as USB sticks and hard drives.

 Why think about it now?

It’s tempting to forget about the basics until after the festive rush – but that could cause problems.

Paperwork can soon bog down any retailer and you’re more likely to make potentially costly mistakes with data when you’re busy and distracted.

Dealing with confidential waste regularly is a must for any busy South Wales store.

Hiring an outsourced confidential waste handling firm is a key way that retailers can take the pressure off over the busy Christmas period.

It’s an easy way you could free up your staff for the pre-Christmas rush and the sales.

No more spending hours shredding old orders, old card slips, letters, staff rotas, contracts, and old staff handbooks.

It also means you’ll get certificates of destruction, your waste will be handled by vetted staff, and you’ll have the peace of mind that you’re complying with data protection legislation.

Why you should choose Taclus Confidential – a South Wales secure shredding company

We offer confidential paper waste and hard drive destruction services at affordable prices.

Taclus Confidential holds the accreditations for ISO 9001:2015 for quality management and ISO14001:2015 for environmental management, and has been certified by independent auditors IQS for both.

Taclus has also been selected as the confidential waste management partner for Keep Wales Tidy.

Are you looking for an affordable and secure shredding service in South Wales? If you need advice on dealing with the secure destruction of confidential waste, call our friendly and efficient team on 02920 676 714, or email [email protected].

Here’s wishing all our customers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

keeping your customer data secure when you’re coming up to the busiest time of your year, it can be easy to spend all your time dealing with urgent things.

For many restaurant owners juggling multiple bookings, deliveries, VAT, and staff issues, dealing with confidential waste is probably not uppermost in their minds.

Yet, a data breach from confidential waste could hit your business badly.

It could damage your reputation and cost you dearly in fines imposed by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

So, it is time to be aware of the threat from dealing with confidential waste poorly.

As restaurant owners, you need to deal with:

• Booking details – with numbers, names, and sometimes the addresses of customers
• Payment slips with names and bank card details on them
• Staff records and rotas, often with mobile phone numbers attached for emergency call-outs or as contact details

Whether your bookings are made on paper or computerised, that information will be in your system somewhere.

So, you’ll need systems to deal with confidential paper waste and old computers or USB sticks.

Wouldn’t it be great if those systems didn’t involve your staff spending hours of their precious time shredding paper?

Maybe now’s the time to consider outsourcing your confidential waste destruction.

Is your restaurant ready for GDPR?

In May 2018, stringent new rules come into force under the General Data Protection Regulations.

You’ll have to declare a data controller and explain who your data processors are. You’ll need to show how you’re caring for your customer, supplier and employee data. If there is a breach, taking this seriously and having systems in place will help reduce the penalties which businesses face.

Under GDPR, organisations where there are serious data breaches could face being fined up to 4% of their worldwide turn-over. Businesses going under because of data breaches becomes more likely.

Having a company policy in place becomes vital under the new system. That policy will need to address how you deal with your company’s confidential waste.

Outsourcing your shredding to a reputable South Wales company which will give you certificates of destruction and has vetted staff will be one important way you show how you’re protecting the data your company holds.

Choosing a company which covers all your basics – from shredding waste paper and old uniforms to shredding old hard drives, CDs, image cards, and USB sticks – also means you can shred all the media which may hold confidential data.

Why you should choose Taclus Confidential – a South Wales secure shredding company

We offer confidential paper waste and hard drive destruction services at affordable prices.

Taclus Confidential holds the accreditations for ISO 9001:2015 for quality management and ISO14001:2015 for environmental management, and has been certified by independent auditors IQS for both.

Taclus has also been selected as the confidential waste management partner for Keep Wales Tidy.

Are you looking for an affordable and secure shredding service in South Wales? If you need advice on dealing with the secure destruction of confidential waste, call our friendly and efficient team on 02920 676 714, or email [email protected].

For every business and organisation, dealing with confidential waste can be a headache.

In some of the worst cases, that headache can turn into a real horror story, with substantial fines and a big hit to an organisation’s reputation.

The Information Commissioner has imposed some substantial penalties in recent years, including fining an English county council which left files that included sensitive information about children in a cabinet sent to a second-hand shop. A fine of £60,000 was imposed in March 2017.

In 2016, a second county council left 45 bags of confidential waste in a disused building which had been sold off. They related to 100 people and contained highly sensitive information about adults and children. A fine of £100,000 was imposed.

Two English NHS trusts had substantial fines – one of more than £200,000 – in 2013 for failing to properly dispose of old computers which contained confidential data

Things are about to get much worse for those who don’t deal with confidential waste correctly. The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) come into force in 2018, and they state a company can be fined up to 4% of its worldwide turnover in the event of the most serious form of breaches.

The threat of a businesses folding because of a confidential waste data breach becomes very real.

Here are Taclus’ top 10 tips to avoid your confidential waste processes turning into a monster:

1. Get secure systems in place to deal with confidential waste paper. If everything is done on an ad-hoc basis, that could end in a nightmare where things are left undone, or done badly.
2. Communicate these systems to all your staff and keep a written record of them. If things do go wrong, you’ll need that.
3. Know the difference between normal paper recycling and confidential waste. Anything with personal details on it can be used by identity thieves or your business competitors, including phone numbers, national insurance numbers, bank account details, and shift patterns. Always err on the side of caution.
4. Make someone responsible for organising your secure shredding or waste handling process and get regular updates on how it’s working.
5. Have secure storage systems on site to collect paper including sensitive details. These include lockable consoles.
6. Think about your branded items and how you deal with them at the end of their useful lives. That includes work clothing, headed paper, and business cards. Don’t let someone use them to pose as you or your staff.
7. Decide how you will deal with hard drives from old computers and laptops. They often contain highly sensitive information and should be shredded, rather than just wiped. All that wiping does is remove the directory. The information is still there.
8. Do you issue company mobile phones? They will also contain contact details and might have sensitive documents downloaded on them. They will need to be handled and processed carefully.
9. Don’t forget smaller items like camera memory cards and flash drives. They may well contain confidential information which must be shredded.
10. Save your staff time and your business money by appointing an accredited company to handle your confidential waste – such as Taclus Confidential.

Why you should choose Taclus Confidential – a South Wales secure shredding company

We offer confidential paper waste and hard drive destruction services at affordable prices.

Taclus Confidential holds the accreditations for ISO 9001:2015 for quality management and ISO14001:2015 for environmental management, and has been certified by independent auditors IQS for both.

Taclus has also been selected as the confidential waste management partner for Keep Wales Tidy.

Are you looking for an affordable and secure shredding service in South Wales? If you need advice on dealing with the secure destruction of confidential waste, call our friendly and efficient team on 02920 676 714, or email [email protected].

Have you been hanging on to old contracts for employees and clients?

If you no longer need them, it’s time to ensure they’re dealt with securely.

They’re legal documents, many contain confidential employee details, and if your competitors get their hands on them it could give them an edge over you in business.

What would happen if fraudsters got their hands on these documents? They could cause havoc for your business.

While most businesses deal with contracts at some point, this is particularly relevant for professionals and companies which use them regularly.

Solicitors, estate agents, car leasing firms, and service providers such as telecommunications companies can deal with contracts on a daily basis.

Employee and client contracts will often contain names, addresses, details of next of kin, phone numbers, personal emails, and banking details.

Losing them could lead to identity theft or bank fraud and claims for compensation from your clients or employees.

This could prove disastrous for your business financially and for your company’s reputation.

What will happen after May 25, 2018?

The new General Data Protection Regulations will come into force, meaning your business faces severe penalties in the most serious cases of data protection breaches.

That could be a £500,000 fine or a fine of up to 4% of your business’ worldwide turnover, whichever is larger. This is a far higher penalty than businesses currently face under the Data Protection Act.

So, losing data on several contracts could mean your business facing ruin.

How steep a penalty businesses face depends on whether they have documented processes in place to protect employee and client data, and how quickly they react to breaches.

Consider using Taclus Confidential – a South Wales secure shredding company

Taclus Confidential provides lockable consoles which can be used when destroying old contracts.

Once placed in the console, only key holders can remove the documents which will be recycled.

Do you have old blank paper contracts? Make sure they’re destroyed, too. Otherwise, someone unscrupulous could claim they work for your business to obtain people’s data.

Do you have digital contracts on old hard drives or flash drives? Taclus Confidential shreds those drives securely, too.

Using a dedicated service like ours has several benefits:

• Staff are checked and all data is destroyed securely
• We provide you with certificates of destruction – so you can prove you have systems to deal with confidential data
• We have a zero-landfill policy
• Our prices are competitive because of our low overheads
• We save you time and money by freeing up your staff to do their core work
• Taclus Confidential holds the accreditations for ISO 9001:2015 for quality management and ISO14001:2015 for environmental management, and has been certified by independent auditors IQS for both
• Taclus has also been selected as the confidential waste management partner for Keep Wales Tidy

Are you looking for an affordable secure shredding service in South Wales? If you need advice on dealing with the secure destruction of confidential waste, call our friendly and efficient team on 02920 676 714, or email [email protected].