By Wayne Clarke, Managing Director of Metrofile Records Management – a group company of JSE listed Metrofile Holdings Limited

Metrofile Records Management in conjunction with another Metrofile group company, Cleardata, recently launched South Africa’s first POPI compliant Secure Shredding service offering which is certified by the National Association of Information Destruction (NAID) and is compliant with the toughest local and international standards.

This follows a spike in demand for a truly secure method of destroying documents post the offsite storage requirements.

Our clients now have a choice to continue having their documents recycled through a managed process or to securely destroy the documents at a minimal additional cost per box. This is required in terms of PCI DSS and POPI laws and compliance is a must for all businesses managing any personal information.

The Secure Shredding service ensures that information and personal records are destroyed by means of cross shredding in a secure managed process that will serve to mitigate the onerous responsibilities of business owners in maintaining confidentiality. In addition, certificates of destruction are made available online immediately following the secure destruction of the documents.

This new service is particularly useful for organisations – that form part of an international umbrella company – and thus need to tie in with international records management mandates.

It is imperative to know that no industry is exempt from POPI requirements, and therefore secure destruction of records applies to all business across all industries and market sectors. Non-compliance with POPI could have severe consequences for businesses in the form of fines by the Information Regulator, reputational damage legal costs, and in some cases, even liquidation.

Metrofile Holdings is the majority stakeholder in Cleardata (Pty) Ltd, South Africa’s leading secure shredding service which caters for the requirements of the national and global information protection laws. The Secure Shredding service will be facilitated by Cleardata and is the most secure method of information destruction available to businesses in South Africa.