Shredding Law

This isn’t new news, but it is good news and it’s worthy of reminding everyone about.

First, a little history… The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act of 2003 was created to help fight identity theft. It went into effect on December 1, 2004. Some sections of it required more work on the details and those sections would become laws at different times. One of them was this relatively new shredding law. The Federal Trade Commission finalized this part of FACT in November of 2004 and it became effective on June 1, 2005.

What I’m calling the shredding law is known as the Disposal of Consumer Report Information and Records and it doesn’t matter if you are a one- or two-woman shop or a huge corporation, you must abide by the law. All paper or electronic records containing consumer information must be destroyed so that the information cannot be read or reconstructed. Consumer information is defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act as any information from a consumer report. Paper can be shredded or burned and electronic data can be overwritten, erased, or physically destroyed. If you choose to ignore this law, there are Federal fines. You may also face state fines as well as civil and class-action liabilities.

High Aspirations’ clients have nothing to fear. We have destroyed all client and company data since our company began in 1999. No one is getting anything on us or our clients out of our trash!

More information on the Disposal of Consumer Report Information and Records can be found in the FTC’s final rule summary.