Anthony Pearlgood displaying shredded papers. “Shred it professionally,” he seems to be saying.
Since its establishment 12 years ago, the British Security Industry Association’s ID Section has been working tirelessly to provide forums for exchanging best practice, developing standards, training and organising conferences and exhibitions aimed at promoting the benefits of using information destruction practitioners by businesses and the public sector including producing publications to advise on issues relating to the destruction of confidential materials.
On May 30th, 2012, further steps were taken to bring to the front burner the multifaceted challenges facing the industry and mapping out strategies for effective marketing via the instrumentality of the social media at its annual Information Destruction Conference and Exhibition held in Birmingham at the National Motor Cycle Museum.
And worried by the fact that the average data breach is now taking its toll on firms in the confidential waste and destruction industry, costing them about £1.9 million annually, participants at the well attended Conference and Exhibition called on the Government to put in place industry specific standards.
Mr Darren Brown from ShredPro proposed a level of legislation/enforcement saying: “Everybody should be forced to shred their waste papers.”
While agreeing with Brown that more enforcement is needed including penalty fines for non-compliance, Mr Robert Guice, Executive Vice President, Shred-it Ltd said: ”Government should come up with industry specific standards. We are not in the waste area, but in information section area. We just need not higher standards, but standards put in place to which everybody must abide by. Somebody who claims he is BSIA- certified, but is not complying with industry best practice is bringing our industry into disrepute.
Mr Anthony Pearlgood, Director of the BSIA’s Information Destruction Section who also agreed to the calls for the sanitization of the ID industry through industry specific standards was quick to announce: “Our members are very conscious about standards. We help them to join because the more we are, the more our voice will be heard by the Government, but we can’t force everybody to be members. It is not about alienating people, but about bringing them in.”
No doubt, Pearlgood’s gentle and pragmatic approach of recruiting members has been yielding astonishing results for the IDS of the BSIA as Mr Andrew Jackson, Regional Operations Manager of Premier Waste Recycling Ltd told Vigilance: “Our reason for attending the ID Conference and Exhibition 2012 is that we are new to the information destruction market. We are aware of the BSIA and are interested in becoming members and to get their advice.”
“Did the Conference and Exhibition meet his expectation?” Vigilance had asked and Jackson beaming with blessedness scored Pearlgood and his team very high for their unparalleled level of organisation and their wisdom in inviting the right calibre of experts as speakers. Said Jackson: “The morning session was very interesting hearing from David Symmers, Consultant who spoke on: Recovered Paper-A Mature Material in an ever Changing Market and brought his over 40 of years experience to bear on the subject matter.”
According to Jackson Mr Martin Hutchins of Cambridge Professional Academy was very informative with regards to social networking and how industry players can use the media such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin to advertise their companies.
The crowning glory of the exhibition is the fact that it offered a veritable platform for networking. On this, Jackson again put Pearlgood and his team in the balance. He said: “The exhibition was very useful for networking, I have personally received some good ideas from different companies and also received lots of advice on how to develop our process.”