In every state of the country these types of mishandled secure personal, financial, medical or corporate data occurs daily. Sometimes the local news media hears of it, sometimes it does not. Sometimes the authorities discover a security breach; when that happens things can get publicly messy and expensive.

Federal and State Governments are very serious when it comes to protecting citizens’ rights, including rights for privacy. Identity theft is just one example.

You can go to the Legislative Compliance section on our website to read more about privacy laws, including FACTA, GLB and HIPAA.

If you are a resident of Maryland or operate a business in Maryland, you may be interested in PIPA, the Personal Information Protection Act.

Within PIPA there are quite a few mandates including requirements for notification to officials as well as those consumers who may have been harmed. In addition, the business with the security breach must conduct an investigation to determine the fallout of the offense. Naturally, all of that can get pretty costly, as lawyers, investigators, police and the OAG all get involved. Once the newspapers, TV and radio stations catch wind of these incidents, a much higher cost is paid; that is consumer confidence in that company, including its procedures and reliability when dealing with the public’s most private information.

Here is a link to Maryland’s PIPA Guidelines:
www.oag.state.md.us/idtheft/businessGL.htm

You may find it interesting that, in addition to paper files, computer tape, CD’s, VHS tape, flash drives, hard drives, etc. there is another ordinary device that holds a lot of data. Digital Copiers Could Be An Identity Theft Threat as well. Many mid-size to large copiers manufactured since 2005 include hard drives, that contain images of any document that has been scanned or copied.

The data held on the digital copier hard drives is held to the same standards as other types of media and governed by PIPA as well.

For more details see:
http://www.oag.state.md.us/idtheft/Copiersecurity.pdf

How does this involve Mobile Data Shredding?

As part of the PIPA guidelines, an additional practice is mandated:

“When a business is destroying records that contain personal information, it must take reasonable steps to protect against unauthorized access to or use of the personal information. A business that owns or licenses personal information must implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices appropriate to nature of the personal information and nature and size of business.”

Mobile Data Shredding, Inc. is your source for compliant, secure, data destruction services. Our programs, including Scheduled Shredding and On-Demand Shredding Services will provide you with a low-cost, high level of confidence in managing sensitive materials recorded onto paper or computer backup media. Contact us directly to discuss these measures.

Mobile Data Shredding, Inc.
8841 Kelso Drive
Baltimore, MD 21221
877-225-6010

Long and Foster

This spring’s shred will be on Saturday, October 29, 2011 from 9 am till 1 pm at their Columbia location:  10805 Hickory Ridge Road, Columbia, MD 21044.

No need to remove paper clips, staples or binder clips.  However, we cannot accept plastic binders, plastic sheet protectors, plastic bags, xrays or microfilm.  If you have xrays you would like to get rid of, we can take them and destroy them off-site at another time.

The events are for residents of the specific communities only and IDs will be checked.  Following are the villages participating and the dates of the events:

Dorsey’s Search Community
September 10
9 am – 1 pm
6 boxes per person limit

Wilde Lake Community
September 17
9:30 am – 1:30 pm

Owen Brown Community Center
September 24
9 am – 1 pm
3 boxes per person limit

Long Reach Community
October 1
9 am – 12:30 pm

Hickory Ridge Community
October 15
9 am – 1 pm
3 boxes per person limit

King’s Contrivance Community
November 5
9:30 am – 1:30 pm

Our mobile shredding vehicle will be available on July 16th 2011 from 10 am -1 pm to destroy all your old medical records, tax files, personal files, etc. No need to remove staples or paperclips. We can shred your manila folders and hanging files as well. Please, no x-ray films, plastics or cardboard. No pre-arrangements are necessary — just come by with your documents and we will be happy to shred them. This service is sponsored by Long and Foster and there is no charge.

Long and Foster

7000 Security Boulevard

Windsor Mill, MD 21244

Round reel (9-track) computer tape capacity was generally 60-80 megabytes. 50 years later we now see single cartridges, a fraction the size of a reel of tape, with 3.0 terabyte capacities in compression, storing roughly 1,000 times the amount of data in a comparatively miniscule space for a tiny fraction of the cost. Hard drives have seen a similar genesis. The large disks, or washing machine disk packs of old were large, slow, very expensive, and extremely sensitive. Technology sales people loved these disk packs as they cost a lot and broke down regularly. In the early days, hard disk capacity was measured in digital words, then up to 5–10 megabytes. Now we have 3.0 terabyte hard drives available in a tiny 2 ½” form factor installed in lap top computers!

Other types of storage have found their place in data processing and high capacity storage applications including many variations of optical media. Microfilm & microfiche, Beta, VHS (as well as other variations of video), Magneto Optical (MO), WORM, CD, DVD, are several examples.

Regardless of the technology used, all these different categories of storage media have one important thing in common … ultra-high volumes of sensitive information stored onto very small, hand held devices.

As the computer, server, recording device or application is upgraded, retired or broken, all that data must be transferred to newer media and/or destroyed. That’s where Mobile Data Shredding comes in. We solve the data retirement void by coming to your location to securely destroy hard drive and other computer media. Learn more about our hard drive and computer tape destruction services or Contact Us today to get the most effective, efficient, and secure on-site destruction and shredding services available.

On Saturday, April 30, 2011 from 9:00 am till 1:00 pm the Mobile Data Shredding, Inc. truck will be at:
Long & Foster
3004 Emmorton Road
Abingdon, MD 21009
Hours are 9am – 1pm

Long and Foster, a state-wide real estate agency in Maryland, is happy to help with your spring cleaning projects. Their Abingdon location is sponsoring a community shred and our mobile shredding vehicle will be available from 9-1 to destroy all your old tax files, office files, personal files, etc. Now is the time to clean out your file drawers and have them shredded at no charge. No need to remove staples or paperclips. We can shred your manila folders and hanging files as well. Please, no xray films, plastics or cardboard. No pre-arrangements are necessary — just come by with your documents and we will be happy to shred them. All our shredded paper is recycled so this is a green project.

Mobile Data Shredding, Inc. is very active with community, public and private shredding programs. Visiting us during one of our local shred events is an effective way for anyone to learn more about our Secure, On-Site Shredding Services and the benefits they provide.

For more information regarding this event, to find out how to arrange a community shredding day of your own, or about our secure services in general, please contact Vicky at 774-454-3107 or online here.

On February 5, 2011 from 9:00 am till 1:00 pm the Mobile Data Shredding, Inc. truck will be at:
Coldwell Banker Brokerage
10050 Baltimore National Pike
Ellicott City, MD 21042

If you are interested in getting free shredding services, you must first contact the Coldwell Banker office at 410-461-7600 to receive a card/voucher to drop off your materials to be shredded.

Mobile Data Shredding, Inc. is very active with community, public and private shredding programs. Visiting us during one of our local shred events is an effective way for anyone to learn more about our Secure, On-Site Shredding Services and the benefits they provide.

For more information regarding this event, to find out how to arrange a community shredding day of your own, or about our secure services in general, please contact Vicky at 774-454-3107 or online here.

Mobile Data Shredding, Inc. will be at:
Long & Foster
10805 Hickory Ridge Road
Columbia, MD 21044

Saturday, November 13 from 9:00 a.m. till 1:00 p.m.

Our mobile shredding truck will be located at Long & Foster office at 10805 Hickory Ridge Road, Columbia, MD on Saturday November 13th from 9:00 am – 1:00 pm.

Mobile Data Shredding, Inc. is very active with community, public and private shredding programs. Visiting us during one of our local shred events is an effective way for anyone to learn more about our Secure, On-Site Shredding Services and the benefits they provide.

For more information regarding this event, to find out how to arrange a community shredding day of your own, or about our secure services in general, please contact Vicky at 774-454-3107 or online here.

Mass. hospital investigating the potential loss of back-up data for 800,000 individuals

WEYMOUTH, MA – South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., reported on Monday that back-up computer files containing personal, health and financial information for approximately 800,000 individuals may have been lost by a data management company that was hired to destroy them.

Officials at South Shore Hospital, a not-for-profit, regional provider of acute, outpatient, home health, and hospice care for Southeastern Massachusetts, said the files were being destroyed because the formatting was no longer compatible with what the hospital used.

According to the hospital, files were sent to a professional data management company for offsite destruction on Feb. 26. When certificates of destruction were not provided in a timely manner, officials said they pressed the data management company for an explanation and were finally informed on June 17 that only a portion of the files had been received and destroyed.

The hospital’s investigation has revealed that the computer files contained personally identifiable information for patients who received medical services at South Shore Hospital – as well as employees, physicians, volunteers, donors, vendors and other business partners associated with the hospital.

The information on the files may include individuals’ full names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, medical record numbers, patient numbers, health plan information, dates of service, protected health information including diagnoses and treatments relating to certain hospital and home healthcare visits, and other personal information. Bank account information and credit card numbers for a very small subset of individuals also may have been on the back-up computer files, said officials. You can read more here