The EU's GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) entered UK law as the Data Protection Act (2018) and remains in force today. The law introduced a new set of rules regarding data privacy, and with non-compliance punishable with large fines, many businesses are concerned about falling foul of its requirements. Document management is a key element of the legislation, especially when documents contain sensitive information about people's lives, medical history, finances, and identity.
How Long Should You Store Sensitive Documents?
Under the GDPR, businesses should not store paperwork for ‘longer than necessary,’ so it is vital to know how long you can legally keep different types of documents. For instance, you should destroy CVs once a vacant job role is filled, whereas financial paperwork must be retained for up to seven years. An offsite document storage provider, like CAS Ltd, can keep your records organised and destroy files that are no longer required.
Reporting Data Breaches
GDPR legislation also requires organisations to report any breaches of personal data – e.g. if a sensitive document is stolen – to the SA (Supervisory Authority) within three days of detection. A document handling service can detect such violations and report them straightaway. However, by storing the documents in an offsite facility, the risk of documents getting lost, given to the wrong person, or stolen, is massively reduced. Better still, you can keep track of how many documents are held in your archive at any given time, organised by user and category, which is not always possible if they are photocopied, removed from your office, or disposed of insecurely. With privacy the main focus of GDPR, a company like CAS can store your files safely and prevent them from being wrongly accessed.
Subject Access Requests And Document Shredding
An essential part of the new legislation is the 'right to erasure'. This means that someone can ask you to remove or delete their personal information by issuing a Subject Access Request. Individuals also have the right to access, view, or amend their personal information within thirty days of making a request. If your document management system is not up to scratch, you might struggle to do this efficiently. A document storage company like CAS will store your files in a central location so that they can be found quickly and destroyed securely if required.
Working With An Off-Site Storage Provider
By hiring a company to store and manage your documents, you can save space in the office while complying with GDPR rules. For more information about how your business can benefit managed off-site storage, contact CAS Ltd today.
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