Simon Stammers, sales director at document capture company and authorised AnyDoc reseller Formscan, said that while the law laid down strict rules for businesses on how long they should store certain information, there were only guidelines for disposing of data.
"This policy has to be driven by the board of directors and it is down to an organisation to develop its own policy for this," he said.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) requires all businesses to keep invoices and records of commercial transaction for seven years, but no recommendations have been given for other records, such as HR documents or pensions information.
The lack of retention guidance also leaves businesses at risk of hanging onto time-expired data for fear of deleting it too early.
Stammers said that the Data Protection Act was unclear about whether data should be destroyed or not, advising businesses to satisfy the regulator but also take the approach that was commercially right for each set of documents.
