The danger of printing documents on printers is described

Office equipment is capable of secretly copying user information and sharing data with third parties. It is reported by The Washington Post (WP).

According to newspaper journalist Tatum Hunter, printers, scanners and MFPs can save documents passing through them – when copying, scanning or printing. The author noted that we are talking not only about publicly available technology, but also personal devices. Hunter stressed that many manufacturers specify this in the contract.

The journalist described the danger of secret copying, noting that personal data can be transferred to third parties. The specialist analyzed the agreements of leading manufacturers of office equipment and found out which companies can have access to user documents.

So, HP stated that they do not save the contents of files that pass through the manufacturer’s equipment. Canon noted that the equipment may collect personal data and use it for marketing purposes. Representatives of the postal services FedEx and UPS said that they store users’ personal data and can also use it for advertising.

At the end of May, journalists from BleepingComputer found out that HP printers of many users around the world were blocked due to an unknown problem. According to the owners of damaged devices, a critical error message appeared on the device screens.