Should I trust my record storage company to destroy my documents?

Most commercial records storage facilities offer records destruction as a service to their customers. However, in a survey conducted by the National Association for Information Destruction, many of those firms were found lacking the equipment necessary to provide the services themselves. It is a common practice in the industry to subcontract the destruction of records. In some cases, disreputable storage firms were found misleading their customer by charging for secure records destruction while the materials were being sold to a recycling company for scrap.

Any business using a commercial records storage firm should inquire as to the nature of the destruction services that are available. It is an unacceptable risk to permit a storage firm to select a subcontractor to provide the records destruction service. The owner of the records is ultimately responsible for their security and, therefore should be selecting the vendor directly.