It is very easy to get caught up in all these free/cheap cloud storage services which enable us access to anything we need, at our fingertips, in just a few clicks, while on our phone in line at Starbucks. The storage services know that once you sign up and start loading documents that it is hard to stop or purge old ones which is how they make money. But I caution real estate agents who store client/transaction documents on various online services such as Google Drive, iCloud, Box, OneDrive, DropBox, etc. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with the technology that makes it insecure, I am more concerned about the lack of procedures around its use.

In a perfect world, agents should leverage some common paperless platform that is an agency approved like a dotloop, SkySlope, docStar, etc. If you have one of those, make sure all documents reside there and do not let rogue documents creep into other locations including leaving them in your email as attachments. Once a document and its related correspondence is filed, delete it from your email. Email is NOT a storage technology, it is a communications technology.

If you are using a free/cheap cloud storage service, my best advice is to use 1 of them, not multiple and to be vigilant about purging documents once the deal is done. I know you have 15+ GB of capacity so you don’t need to purge but if you don’t, you can end up having years’ worth of transaction documents stored online which is a breach nightmare. If the bad guys get into your cloud, there should only be a few deals worth of documents, not everything. I know it is hard to regularly purge but it is easier than having to contact all your otherwise happy clients to alert them that their personal/confidential information has been stolen. That will be bad for your business which you have been working so hard to develop.