Shred Documents When Traveling
How to shred your sensitive documents without a shredder
Even from the hotel the business traveler needs to prevent identity theft.
If you don't travel with a decent, working trashcan-top shredder, there are other ways to terminate your documents. Some of them are even good ideas...
- Handheld Travel Shredder - Wouldn't this seem like the ideal solution? A handheld battery-run shredder should mangle your docs sufficiently to foil indentity thieves. Unfortunately a good reliable handheld shredder is hard to find. In other words, everyone I've used I decided to take out back and shoot.
- Eat Your Papers - Sounds very Mission Impossible and eating your sensitive documents is certainly an option. If you are a Secret Agent Man, that is. Too much paper can add fiber to your diet but the ink is probably not so good for the liver.
- Flush Them - Not a nice thing to do to basic hotel plumbing. And remember that if CSI agents can recover these things, then really, can't anyone who tries hard enough?
- Burn Them - A sure way to burn down your hotel. Or at least to start the sprinklers going. Most hotels disapprove of you cremating your faxes and ATM stubs in their rooms.
- Rip Them Into Tiny Pieces - Kinda boring and you feel silly, but it works for the occasional document. I have a small scissors in my travel kit that I sometimes remember to use. Not so good for thick documents or when you have lots of things to shred/eliminate/send off to oblivion. Remember to scatter the confetti pieces into several different trashcans across the face of the city for super-duper uptight secret files that must not be reassembled by the enemy.
- Keep Them; Shred Later - For more than a piece of mail here and there, the best choice is to keep a folder in your workbag or briefcase for files to bring home. Then shred them there. And then burn the pieces. And flush the ashes.
The copyright of the article Shred Documents When Traveling in Business Travel Tips is owned by Dan Florio. Permission to republish Shred Documents When Traveling must be granted by the author in writing.
