What Counts as Client Data for Tampa Companies?

Most companies understand that they need to avoid client data breaches. Through doing business, they’ll collect information from their clients, both directly and indirectly. But what exactly counts as client data, and what do companies have to do to protect that information?

Personally Identifiable Information

While it’s evident that some types of client data need special protections and handling, personally identifiable information isn’t so easy to define. Basically, it’s the information you gather from clients to identify them, contact them, charge them, and so on.

Almost every company will have some of this information on hand because even a client’s name falls under this category. There’s also their address, date of birth, phone number, and other contact information. Once it’s no longer needed, your company needs to securely and adequately destroy this information to avoid identity theft and prevent someone from reaching out to your clients under pretenses.

Specifically Protected Information

While you don’t want any of your client data leaked, specific kinds of personally identifiable information (PII) and records are under strict legal protections. The most significant case is data protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

HIPAA requires medical offices to maintain strict control over patient information. That being the case, companies need to maintain strict controls on handling and disposing of this sensitive information. If your organization handles medical files, you can’t afford the severe ramifications and fines that will come with a HIPAA violation.

Financial Information

Depending on how you do business, you might find yourself in direct possession of critical financial information from your clients. This can include banking information for direct withdrawals or wire transfers, or even check receipts. This sensitive data could give third parties access to client accounts if it were to leak.

You should even treat partial financial information from receipts as confidential. While any specific document might not carry every bit of information needed to access a person’s accounts, it could be the final piece of the puzzle for someone who already has some info.

ShredQuick Professional Shredding Services in Tampa

With ShredQuick, you can rest easy knowing that you’ve fulfilled your responsibilities to your clients in terms of proper document and data disposal. We can come to your site to carry out paper shredding and hard drive destruction. You can contact ShredQuick today for bulk shredding or sign up for our route shredding service.