The Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) recently issued a publication entitled Copier Data Security: A Guide for Businesses (the “Publication”) to alert businesses of the potential data security threat posed by digital copiers. As outlined in the Publication, digital copiers contain hard drives that store data about documents that are printed, copied, scanned, faxed or emailed. In the Publication, the FTC warns businesses, “if you don’t take steps to protect that data, it can be stolen from the hard drive, either by remote access or by extracting the data once the drive has been removed.” Protection of sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, credit reports, account numbers or health records is not only good business, but may be required by law. The Publication provides information on basic digital copier operation and recommends data protection techniques that businesses can use to protect data stored on digital copier hard drives.

To view the Publication, click here.