There is a scandal in Tasmania concerning their deputy premier Steve Kons. The scandal began when Mr Kons mislead parliament about an appointment he had made. A shredded piece of paper from his trash was re-assembled showing the opposite of his testimony.

Looking at the picture it looks as if the deputy premier used a strip cut shredder. This is easily re-assembled using software or even by hand.

Make sure you use a cross cut shredder or a shredding service.

Trafford College claims to have a strict procedures for shredding all confidential student information that is no longer required. However, the information for students and faculty was recently found the local television media.

The documents contained the their names, addresses and national insurance numbers, gender, dates of birth, ethnicities, mobile phone numbers, landlines, email addresses and preferred titles. More than enough to open up some bogus accounts in their name.

These types of problems can be avoided when a locked shredding bin is placed in an office. Your local shredding service will even provide them for free when they do the paper shredding for you.

Patient records from St. Joseph's Healthcare have turned up in a dumpster behind a coffee shop. Apparently the brother of the coffee shop was a resident at the hospital when the records were removed. The documents contained the personal information for about a dozen patients. From their condition it looks like the documents were put in the dumpster as part of some spring cleaning.

The documents were discovered by retiree Mike Hathway and his wife. They were turned over to the hospital but it is unclear if others were missing.

I have heard personal information described as toxic waste. Its mere existence can harm a company long after its useful life. A good idea is to provide a cheap and easy shredding program for your employees home so they aren't just throwing away documents they have taken home. A good one is Ship 'n' Shred.

Hexter Elementary in Dallas is the latest school to leave volunteer and employee records in the dumpster. The school district said the matter was "regrettable" but offered no solution to prevent this from happening in the future.

I guess I must come to the conclusion that they have extra lawyers with nothing to due so they can just answer the privacy complaints cheaper then prevent them. Since a lawyer is $175 and hour and a shredding service is less than $75 an hour it seems a peculiar trade off.

I was not surprised to see the story about James Hastings, a dumpster diver. For months James went through the dumpsters behind People's United Bank branches looking for proof that they were not protecting their customers' private information. And eventually he found what he was looking for, boxes full of customer records. But unlike most stories about records in the dumpster he went to the company to blackmail them for a job and money.

This is evidence that thousands of people are going through your trash waiting for you to make a mistake. Every business better make shredding available and easy to every employee or face the consequences. This means expecting someone to stay late on Friday to do their shredding is an invitation for disaster. Locked bins from a shredding service placed around the office is the only way to safeguard your business.

We are used to reporting on companies that own a shredder and then fail to use it but
Peter R.G. Roberts, an accountant in Vancouver takes recklessness to a whole new level. He was relying on people simply not looking in the dumpster because it was locked. But wait. The documents weren't in the dumpster but next to it. Needless to say they were discovered by a passerby who notified the local media.

Vancouver's Information and Privacy Commissioner is looking into how the documents containing names, addresses, social insurance numbers, and financial information were left unprotected. The board of accountants is also looking into the matter.

Mr. Robers may loose his accreditation and face legal penalties just to save a few dollars on a shredding service. Not a very good gamble for someone as conservative as an accountant.