A brave new world: proper and prudent document destruction is as important as any other milestone in a record's life cycle.

• Author: Geiser, Willie

At the Core

This article:

* Provides examples of prudent document destruction programs

* Offers advice on how to destroy records properly and legally

* Discusses tips for selecting a destruction contractor

Records and information destruction activities have shocked and captivated audiences over the past year. The sometimes heated discussion has been driven largely by divergent perspectives and has resulted to some degree in mixed messages and confusion about the propriety of information destruction. On the other hand, legislation such as Gramm-Leach-Bliley and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are forcing the issue of information destruction on the financial and healthcare worlds. States such as Wisconsin, California, and, most recently, Georgia, have passed laws to fight the rising wave of identity theft, requiring businesses to destroy obsolete personal information. Shredding, however, continues to be characterized in the media and by some politicians as an inherently dubious, even suspicious, activity with no purpose other than to conceal incriminating information.

The fact is that proper, scheduled destruction of information is both a highly responsible and necessary business activity, one mandated by legal and regulatory requirements--as well as common sense--to protect consumers and businesses alike. Proper and prudent document destruction is as important as any other milestone in the life cycle of a record.

A Rose is a Rose (Even in the Wastebasket)

It is understandable that many records and information managers primarily focus on the paper-based and electronic records that are conveniently stored on shelves or disks for a required (and, hopefully, specific) period of time. The task of managing records kept for legal, regulatory, and business purposes is, however, increasingly daunting. Maintaining those records in a rationalized, centralized, and organized manner is crucial to compliance, retrieval, retention, and disposition. Add to that the furious pace at which technology affects records creation, access, and distribution while satisfying the demands of internal customers, and it is easy to see why the resources, time, and attention of records managers are already stretched thin.

In such an environment, some functions will get less attention than others. For example, record managers have given up their influence on a significant segment of records: incidental records, which are sometimes called non-records. As defined in Chapter 44, U.S. Code, 3301, incidental records include extra copies (e.g., photocopies) of documents such as routing slips, transmittal sheets, materials made for museum purposes, and intermediate drafts, created or received throughout the course of the day, that have no value beyond their immediate use. They can comprise as much as 60 percent of the waste generated in an office environment. These records may have a life of a few minutes or a few weeks, but often they are discarded without any acknowledgement of their creation or a policy regarding their proper retention and disposal.

Do these incidental records have importance? How often has the "smoking gun" turned out to be a handwritten note to a colleague? There have been lawsuits in which simple drawings on cocktail napkins were admitted as significant material evidence. (A well-known incident involves a multimillion-dollar settlement in 1973 in which John Atanasoff, a professor at Iowa State University, produced a cocktail napkin that proved that he was the originator of the computer in 1937.) A discarded Post-it Note[R] could prove as much a bona-fide business record as correspondence from the CEO to the Securities Exchange Commission.

Reclaiming Turf and Missed Opportunity

Right or wrong, the status and value (and longevity) of individuals within corporate America often is determined by internal spheres of influence. Records managers who have relinquished control over incidental business records to the facilities manager, an offsite storage company, or a janitorial service as a waste-disposal issue are missing an opportunity to show their value and, more importantly, to properly execute their responsibility and serve their organization.

The Role of Destruction in RIM

There are many reasons organizations would be well advised to make sure they routinely destroy discarded original, duplicate, and incidental records in an organized and documented method. All of those reasons focus on protecting the organization.

Dumpster Diving

It is obvious that discarded records should not fall into the hands of competitors. The risk of this occurring depends upon circumstances...