Go paperless this World Paper Free Day to protect your business

In this blog, we discuss the benefits of going paper free not only because it’s eco-friendly, but also because acting responsibly can protect your business from fraudulent activity.

It’s a well-known fact that fraud is on the rise in the UK, taking place both online and offline. Fraudsters are targeting companies and individuals in more ways than ever before from identity theft to stealing customers’ data through hacking.

Now is the time to ensure your company is safe and secure, as a recent study by KMPG found that there has been an increase in the cost of fraud cases in the UK, totaling £385 million this year. This is a significant increase from 2014, which already stood at hefty £317 million.

With 31% of business executives admitting that their office is ‘piled high’ with paper documents, this is an open invitation for fraudulent activity to take place. Research also found that 11% of printed documents are lost by businesses.

With so much paper present in the workplace, businesses need to consider the benefits of a paper free way of working, not only to support their green initiatives but for the security of employees, customers and the business itself. In fact, if businesses could remove paper from their operations, they could also improve business productivity by as much as 30%.

Protecting your business

The seventh principle of the Data Protection Act states that organisations must have appropriate security to prevent personal data stored, from being purposefully or accidentally compromised. Reducing paper work and managing confidential information responsibly will decrease the chances of illegal activity being undertaken by fraudsters.

There are a number of simple steps to take which will drastically reduce the threat to your business, these include:

• Have a comprehensive Data Protection Policy in place and ensure this is communicated throughout the organisation
• Safely destroy all confidential documents that are no longer required using a credible paper shredding services
• Ensure that important documents and data are stored with a secure provider. By storing information such as legal documents, medical records and employee records off site, it reduces the chances of data theft
• Convert paper documents to digital formats which are hosted on secure networks as this will prevent important information from being lost in the office and ensure the data stored online