Secure printing: getting hot

The hottest issue in the printer/MFP world is secure printing. And the reasons are well illustrated in a survey that tech consulting firm IDC did in the UK for Canon. The survey results, according to a CRN article (“VARs must switch on to secure printing”, 11/12/07:
▪ 72 percent of office workers have picked up personal emails belonging to their colleagues
▪ 18 percent have looked at personnel records including salary info ▪ 70 percent have found and looked over job applicants’ résumés

In another recent survey commissioned by Brother, it was found that three out of four small and medium-size firms were unaware of the issue of unsecured printing. And in the companies that were aware of it, only about 40 percent had policies in place.

These surveys were made in the UK, but the results would likely be similar in the US and the increasing push for document confidentiality is similar in both countries.

The CPN article, which is mostly aimed at telling dealers how push security as a selling point for new machines, stresses the increasing legal requirements many companies face in keeping data confidential. It also outlines the various techniques from PIN entry to encryption to biometrics that are being currently featured in more and more products. As the article puts it, “Secure printing is mainly used in government and in defence industries, but has filtered through to large enterprises, mainly in the legal and financial services industries.”