Tino Ciatto is general manager of the Providence branch of Shred-It, an Ontario-based company founded in 1987 with offices across the country.
PBN: What do you do at Shred-It? How does it work exactly?
CIATTO: Shred-it is an on-site mobile document-destruction company; we provide our customers with secure locked security consoles and on a scheduled basis, we will come to their office and shred all their documents using our mobile shredding truck in their parking lot. We also provide clean-out or purge service for customers that need to comply with their document retentions schedule. Our trucks have the capability of shredding 4,000 pounds of documents per hour.
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PBN: How is business holding up for you?
CIATTO: We have been fortunate that our business remains steady during these tough economic times. We have found that in some cases companies have decided to hold off on their annual purge shredding in an effort to conserve cash – although during these tough times, businesses need to make sure they secure and destroy all confidential information more than ever. Corporate espionage is a $60 billion-per-year industry. I always ask businesses what it would cost in fines and reputation if the right piece of information on that one piece of paper got in the hands of the wrong person.
PBN: Has Shred-It been affected by the growing use of digital documents?
CIATTO: No, companies still primarily communicate via e-mail, fax, et cetera. Scanning happens once the document is generated, and once scanned it needs to be destroyed.
PBN: When you think about what you’ve seen over the years, are there any common mistakes people make in terms of handling sensitive documents?
CIATTO: Many companies believe that identity theft will never happen to them, so why worry? But the Federal Trade Commission estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year. This is up from 4 million four years ago. I would have to say the most common mistakes would be ignoring the growing concern; attempting to handle the destruction of material in house; and believing that if they have a recycling program in place, their company is secure.
PBN: Is there anything your machines can’t shred?
CIATTO: Our trucks are equipped with proprietary shredding equipment capable of shredding anything from paper to hard drives. We have shredded some interesting items over the years – clothing, collectables, license plates, golf balls, wedding pictures, etc. •
