Digital copiers are the new security fear

All digital copiers made since 2002 use a hard drive to store information including copied images. So images of confidential documents are stored unsecured on these hard drives. This problem was revealed about two weeks ago by the CBS Evening News. This only applies to office-grade copiers. Your home all-in-one printer (AIO) does not do this, I hope.

This is a large worry as businesses and governmental offices use digital copiers all the time. Ever rent a car? Did they photocopy your drivers license? You need to worry.

Office digital copiers are usually leased and replaced at the end of the lease. The hard drive is not wiped clean when the old copier is replaced. The scanned images can be retrieved from the hard drive. Old digital copiers are often sent overseas to South America or Asia. Our confidential information is going with them.

There is little we can do other than to alert businesses and governments that this is a major security concern and that they need policies and procedures to insure that the hard drives on their digital copiers are scrubbed before they replace them.

It would be a good thing if the copiers automatically deleted images immediately. We can hope that elected officials will address this privacy and security loophole forthwith.