As part of our service, we help our customers stay up to date on all the laws that affect their industries.Health Information Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA).HIPAA was enacted in 1996, with mandatory compliance by April 2003. This act required the Department of Health and Human Services to establish national standards for electronic healthcare transactions and national identifiers for providers, health plans, and employers. It also addresses the security and privacy of Patient Health Information (PHI). Specifically, it requires healthcare providers to destroy PHI before throwing it away.Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999)Created for the financial services industry, this law mandated broad rights for consumers. In terms of shredding, it stated that financial services firms need to destroy consumer information before discarding it and created penalties for violations.U.S. Supreme Court Ruling (California v. Greenwood – 1988) In this landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled that trash is not private. The Court ruled “it is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left along a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public.Security:If you don’t protect your company’s data and intelligence like trade information, the courts won’t either. Casual disposal of information has been the basis for courts to deny trade information rights, which otherwise would have been enforceable