Sensitive documents posing a problem for HR

Confidentiality

According to a new study from the UK's Fraud Prevention Service, 60,000 people in the UK have fallen victim to fraud so far this year.

The study, conducted to coincide with the UK's National Identity Fraud Prevention week, also found that roughly a third of businesses in the United Kingdom throw sensitive documents in the bin instead of shredding them, posing serious concerns for HR managers across the globe.

The unique study, which questioned 1000 employees across the UK, found that as much as 36 percent did not know or were unsure if their employer had a comprehensive policy in place pertaining to the handling of sensitive documents.

Its a worrying statistic, especially considering recent reports that suggest bank hacking, for instance, is also on the rise. Back in January, for instance, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, experts warned how the threat of cyber-crime is rising sharply, fuelling demand for a new system to tackle well organized gangs of cyber-criminals.

At the time, reports from the Forum suggested that online theft alone costs somewhere in the region of $1 trillion a year, with the number of attacks far outpacing the number of people and businesses who understand how to properly protect themselves.

Now this new research - focusing on identity fraud, which involves fraudsters stealing personal details and then using them to apply for credit or benefits in their victim's name - suggests similar findings.

The concern is that business managers have to face up to the responsibility they have to their employees to protect them in their workplace. The advice from businesses is to ensure that employees are fully informed about the risks associated with identity fraud.

Businesses should also create a clear set of guidelines and procedures for employees to refer to that concerns the handling, storage and sharing of sensitive information, both on and offline. As such, all employees should know about it, and the guidelines should really be issued as part of employees' ongoing HR programme.

As Tyron Hill, spokesman for the National Identity Fraud Prevention Week in the UK put it: "The threat of identity fraud is very real and very current."

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