Some Copy Machines Remember You

So what do you use your office copy machine for? Obviously, you would say, it’s used for work documents such as company brochures or internal memos. But what else? Occasionally, you and/or your office mates may use it for personal documents, such as income tax returns, photo identification or Social Security documents. Surely, the boss wouldn’t mind that too much. In most offices, this is true, but that’s not the point. Here is some information that may make you change your mind or at least think twice before doing so.

If your office copy machine was manufactured in the past five years, a hard drive is included with the copier that stores a digital copy of every document copied. That way if the original is lost, you can call up the digital version to make another copy. This is a great idea for your office documents, but what about any documents with personal tax or identifying information? Ouch! Let’s hope everyone in the office is trustworthy. Worse yet, what if the company decides to sell the photocopier and get a new one. Ouch again! You don’t know who will have access to this information.

However, Sharp is promoting its new copy machines with options to encrypt these stored copies or virtually shred them so they can’t be recovered. Find out if your company copier offers these features, and if they do, be sure to use them. If not, you may want to think twice about what you copy.