Your printer knows a lot about you – think about it

As I walked into the office this morning, I saw a large copier/printer/fax waiting to go the other way. It was obviously on its way to the skip or the second-hand shop. For those of us working in offices, we have grown used to using these multi-function devices (MFD). In some ways, the MFD has become the new ‘water-cooler’, where, people come together for a quick chat or gossip, as they wait for their document, or scan to complete and heaven forbid, even a fax to pop out of it.

I suppose it never would really occur to us that many of these MFDs would have a hard disk in them. We all know that they have to have some sort of storage in them, don’t we? Hence, why jobs get ‘queued’ to the printer, then we all stand around waiting for my ‘job’ to complete. This story from CBS News, really made me think. They report that ‘Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive – like the one on your personal computer – storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or emailed by the machine. In the process, it’s turned an office staple into a digital time-bomb packed with highly-personal or sensitive data.’

CBS News launched an investigation, where they bought second hand copiers. They bought four for circa $300. They took them away, then removed the hard drives in them and had a look at what was stored on them. There was a lot of valuable information; tens of thousands of documents. On one used by a sex crimes unit, they found information which detailed domestic violence complaints. One copier, used by a Police drugs unit, contained a list of targets in a drugs raid. One other copier was used by a health insurance company and had 300-pages of individual medical records.

It really makes you think – does it not. It is a wake call to the manufacturers of these devices and the companies who use them, to consider how to erase and remove information from them. We as consumers need to think about the printers and copiers we use at home and understand if they contain a hard drive. If they do, then you need to find out from the manufacturer, or the retailer who sold it to you, to understand how you can erase the drive when you are finished with the device.

April 21, 2010 | Filed Under Data loss 

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