The ongoing trend of identity theft cases piling up is a huge concern indeed to employers who want to make sure everybody in their staff is well protected. The proof is in the pudding - the General Accounting Office's most recent report shows about 750,000 Americans per year falling victim to identity theft. So what are you doing to protect your employees' identities? Here are some ideas.
Guard Your Employee Files
This would be dealt with by Human Resources, who normally have their own security policies when it comes to personal employee information. Make sure employee files, both active and terminated, are under lock and key. And as far as the key is concerned, this should only be held by you, as the man (or woman) in charge and the head of Human Resources. In fact, you may want to completely entrust access to employee files to the Human Resources department, and them alone.
Non-Disclosure Of Information
The only time you would go against the policy of not releasing employee information to anybody would be if your company receives a subpoena signed by a court official and asking for such data.
Clean Desk Rule
Every company should have some sort of clean desk policy. If there is none, then you are in big trouble if you don't set up one post haste. This rule ensures that any employee who deals with any type of sensitive employee data clears their desk and files and that this information is under lock and key whenever they leave their workstation. This is a policy implemented by many financial and housing institutions.
Masking Social Security Numbers
I'm sure you remember the time when you were still starting out, and you felt comfortable using your entire Social Security number as a personal identifier. With the increase in identity theft, (and the methods by which thieves acquire this information), employers are now using number masks. This simply means that Mr. John Q. Public would no longer be identified as 123-00-4567, but instead as PUBLIC XXX-XX-4567. This is the same technique used when sending letters or information through both kinds of mail, and has resulted in less cases of identity theft.
Obliterating Sensitive Information With A Shredder
We briefly mentioned shredding a couple paragraphs back, and this is something you should do every time information does not require any recycling. By this we mean shredded, and for just about $50 you can get a good paper shredder on the cheap - a tiny Sherman Tank of a weapon against identity theft. Before your employees go home to their loved ones, don't let them take a step outside the office until all personal information has been conveniently shredded. This avoids storing hundreds of documents that can cause your employees' information to be stolen.
Identity theft causes months of grief and potentially thousands of dollars to fix. It's up to employers to do their part in protecting them at the workplace. For more information, contact your Human Resources office.
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