Protect Your Business by Protecting Identities of Your Employees and Customers

In business you may get access to the information of many individuals. You must safeguard this information as if it is your own. Business owners are responsible by law to protect the identities of their employees and their customers.
When someone applies for a job with you, he/she has to provide the social security number and other personal details. During your business, you may get information about the bank account and credit cards of the customers. If you neglect to provide sufficient security to such information, these individuals may suffer and you may not be able to get away with such negligence. The Federal Trade Commission has specified five major guidelines for protecting this sensitive information as a business owner:

1. What information you have and who can access the information - If you are obtaining the information of your customers, it may be through a website or through papers. You should set a standard process for obtaining, storing and disposing of such information. The information should not be accessed by employees who are not related to this work. If the information is to be disposed of, it should be done with extreme care because it may fall into criminal hands of someone.

2. You should not keep information which is not required - You should not ask unnecessary information from your customers on your employees in the first place. If you do not require the social security number of your customers, do not ask for it. You should not store information about credit cards of your customers once the transaction is completed. If you have less information with you, the possibilities of theft are reduced automatically.

3. Appropriately protect the information which is given to you - The background checks of employees accessing sensitive information should be regularly made. Such sensitive information should always be protected under a firewall and with strong passwords. The employees should be instructed not to leave any file open when they leave their table for lunch or for the day. You should also hold regular meetings of employees to educate them about the safety standards. Such information should never be accessible to your employees from their laptops or from their home computers. There is a possibility of other family member accessing such information in that case.

4. You should dispose of information once you use it - You may collect information for a specific purpose but when the work is done, you should properly dispose of such information. This may be done by shredding papers or by using some erasing software. Once an employee leaves your business, his passwords should be made inactive immediately.

5. You should have a plan to deal with security breaches - Even though you are very careful about securing sensitive information, you should not be over confident. As the technology is improving every day, there are many new methods available to the thieves. You should have a ready plan to handle leakage of such information from your business. This plan should include actions like filing a police complaint as well as approaching the other law enforcement authorities. It is also a good idea to inform your customers about the theft and the possible risks involved.

There is a bond of trust between you and your employees as well as your customers. You are responsible for the security of the information they have provided to you. You are protecting your own business when you successfully protect their identities!