Majority (63%) of Large Businesses in America Have a Known and Understood Protocol for Storing and Disposing of Confidential Information, But Small Businesses Lagging Substantially (46%)

Toronto, ON - A majority (63%) of c-suite executives surveyed say that their organization has a known and understood protocol for storing and disposing of confidential data that is strictly adhered to by all employees, an increase from 51% last year, according to a new Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Shred-It. Another 23% say they have a protocol but that not all employees are aware of it, and just 9% say that no protocol exists.

However, small business owners are much less likely to say they have a protocol that is strictly followed (46%), and they're not making any headway with a decrease of 1% over last year. While 12% say they have a protocol but it is not widely known, 37% of small business owners say they don't have a protocol at all.

When compared to small businesses (25%), large businesses are more likely to say that stricter financial penalties for not adhering to document destruction legislation would result in their organization improving information security policies (64%).

Thinking about how often businesses audit their organization's information-security procedures or protocols for storing and disposing of confidential information to assess their effectiveness, 69% of c-suite execs say their business frequently conducts this type of audit, while 19% do so sometimes, and few rarely (7%) or never (5%) perform this type of audit. Small business owners are nearly equally split in their frequency of auditing their procedures or protocols as 27% do so frequently, 29% do so sometimes, 20% rarely, and 24% never audit these procedures.

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between April 20th and May 3rd, 2015, on behalf of Shred It. For this survey, a sample of 1,000 American small business owners (under 100 employees) and 101 c-suite executives (100+ employees) from Ipsos' American online panel and vendor panels was interviewed online. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within +/ - 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all American small businesses been polled, and +/- 11.2 percentage points had all c-suite execs been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Sean Simpson Vice President Ipsos Public Affairs (416) 572-4474 [email protected]

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