Grab Your Old Statements, We're Going To The Shred-A-Thon!
Tucson, Arizona is hosting a community shred-a-thon in October, where private citizens can show up with boxes of sensitive data and have it shredded for free. Back in July, the Wall Street Journal looked at the growing trend of community shredding events as an example of how regular people are taking action to prevent identity theft.
The WSJ wrote:
Although there are no hard data tracking the number of such shred-a-thons, people in the paper-shredding industry say they are becoming more popular. Tom Thompson, general manager of Information Protection Solutions of America, a Chicago-based consortium of 90 certified shredding companies, says that inquiries he’s received about shredding events have doubled to three or four a week after the financial crisis hit last year.
With paper fraud accounting for 25% of reported data breaches for the first half of the year, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit based in San Diego, mobile shredders provide a quick solution to a critical but otherwise tedious at-home ritual.
In most cases, the events are partnerships between the city or community and professional shredding companies. That means if you want to see your own city host a similar event, a good place to start looking is on sites like these:
Or heck, maybe you can get your local church or community group involved and help organize the event yourself. That way you can cherry-pick your neighbor’s most valuable sensitive data to resell help your neighbors be more safe.
“A Town That Shreds Together…” [Wall Street Journal]
“Shred-A-Thon to prevent identity theft” [KOLD News 13 via bbi_secure]
(Photo: oddharmonic)
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