Secure your ID day

April 16 is “Secure Your ID Day/Shred Day.”

The National Association for Information Destruction and the Better Business Bureau of North Alabama (BBB) are teaming up to offer two locations to shred sensitive documents.

The Decatur location is at the Decatur Campus of Calhoun Community College from 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and the Huntsville location is in the parking lot of the US Space and Rocket Center from 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Residents and businesses are encouraged to bring their sensitive paper documents, CDs and floppy discs to be shredded. Three boxes or bags of documents and / or up to two computer hard drives will be destroyed in a quick-and-easy drive through arrangement.

Secure Destruction Service will shred documents on site in their commercial shredder and all hard drives and CDs will be incinerated off site at the conclusion of the event.

“Properly destroying documents that carry information that you don’t want to get in the hands of crooks is an important first step to prevent identity theft,” said Michele Mason, CEO of the North Alabama BBB. “Threats abound both online and offline and no one is completely safe, but there are steps you can take to protect yourself against identity theft and limit the damage.”

In 2010, 11.1 million Americans became victims of ID theft, a 12.5 percent increase over the previous year, according to a 2010 report from Javelin Strategy and Research.

“In 2010, more than 14,000 people and 409 tons of sensitive documents were shredded for free at 62 sites across North America,” Mason said . “And at the National Shred Day event in October 2010, 8.8 tons of paper were shredded in Huntsville alone. This year, we anticipate having an even larger impact due to the increased number of shred events throughout the country. ”