When shredding there is a variety of different levels of security to ensure that the paper is shred properly so that nobody can lay their eyes on the document, what’s more important is that the document cannot be pieced back together so theirare a variety of measures taken to assure this. There are only different levels of security for shredding in the government and in this article I am going to tell you more about the measures which are taken and how they guarantee that the document is destroyed. 

Security Levels in detail

Standard shredders usually begin at Level 1 and these are shredded in 12mm strips. It then goes onto Level 2 in which the length of each strip is decreased to 6mm. When it progresses to Level 3 we begin to see bigger precautions taken. In Level 3 security the strips are only 2mm and this is usually used with confidential documents. The next level is Level 4 and these are 2x 15 mm particles and these are usually commercially sensitive documents. This then proceeds onto Level 5 in which it is 0.8 x 12 mm particles and this level of security is usually used for top secret or classified documents. The final level of security used is Level 6 and this is the most highly secured level of shredding documents, this setting is once again for top secret and classified documents. And it is shred at 0.8 x 4mm particles.

Why are there Security levels?

{mosimage} So why are these security measures in place? Some government documents are highly confidential and top secret and it is important for the government to make sure that nobody else can read the content of these documents so these security measures work well in making sure that documents are finely shredded so that nobody can read these documents again. With the finer levels of shredding you can see how difficult it must be to even consider sticking these shreds back together. Government documents are confidential and these security levels make sure that top secret and confidential documents are destroyed so that nobody else can read its content.

These levels of security are essential when shredding certain documents. As the confidentiality of the document moves up the levels it only gets more security measures to destroy them. It is obvious that higher measures and precautions need to be taken when shredding such confidential and private documents which are held by the government.

I hope you have learned something about the different levels of security when shredding government documents, there are so many precautions taken to make sure that the documents are destroyed and now you know what measures they take to shred them by level of confidentiality.