I own the GBC 960X Shredmaster shredder for my home office because, like everybody these days, I'm aware of all the recent reports of identity theft. I use the Shredmaster on business documents that I've taken home from work and to shred my personal information, like credit card statements, tax stuff, etc. If you need a shredder for your small business, the GBC 960X Shredmaster is a good choice. It can shred through staples and paper clips, so you don't have to waste time pulling them out before shredding.
Depending on how much shredding you have to do, your business may need a shredder that can do more at a time. Shredders will vary by capacity they can shred at once, how much of the shredded material they can hold, and how it cuts. There are a few other additional functions that shredders might have, like the ability to shred CDs. Most of the sites out there selling shredders have a comparison tool to narrow it down to the right shredder for your needs, so I don't need to go into the differences here.
HIPAA & FACTA are government regulations that require companies to protect consumer identity and health information they use in business. Companies must destroy this information - which includes paper documents with sensitive information printed on them. If your company does handle confidential information, it is up to you to determine the likelihood that information could be exposed and to decide how to destroy it. You can either burn or shred (and then recycle, we hope) the sensitive documents. Because of the relative difficulty for most companies to burn documents, shredding is usually preferred.
Shredders are labeled with Security Levels of 1,2,3,4,5, or 6. You would use a Security Level 6 shredder if your company deals with the most highly confidential documents (i.e. documents affecting national security). The more sensitive or confidential the information is, the smaller the pieces your documents must be shredded into. Information at higher security levels must also be cross-cut (into small rectangular pieces - also called confetti-cut) whereas information at lower security levels can still be strip-cut.
To learn more about this security compliance, visit HIPAA or FACTA.
