Identity Theft Haven – Used Copiers for Sale with Data Loaded Hard Drives and Information Galore for the Taking!

Ok paper folks, so you thought scanning a piece of paper and making a copy was safe, well think again as depending on the type of copier you have each scan might be stored on a drive. In this article the news agency saw a medical record that showed someone’s HIV file. Copiers are a major loophole for privacy. Wiping the drive or getting a sledgehammer would fix the problem, but unlike computers many do not even think about the drive in a copier.

You just power up the machine and there’s a list of past print jobs, to reference and re-print if you want. If you are getting a new copier this might be something to think about if you are trading it in, ask the company if they are going to wipe the drive before trading in for a new one. You see the memory on copy machines all the time for reference. The machines being discussed are the all in one machines that fax, scan print and some can email, so if they can do all of that, there’s a drive in there to create memory.

They called the office called Caroline Kennedy as they found records with her phone number and other information. The phone number was correct. Now if you in a medical practice, think twice about trading in that machine by all means! Have you called a company asking for your information to be sent to you via fax, well like me internet faxing holds the image, all big companies do that. If you look and see an IP address, the individual talking in the video tells you it has not been cleared. Remember so many of the new copiers go right on a network and function with an address, just like a computer.

All you do is connect a computer to the hard drive in the machine and you have all the documents. Use the link and watch this video. There are no laws or regulations on how to clean the hard drives. In the video they show documents clearly marked “confidential” and some have signatures high ranking individuals at places like Google, etc. so nobody seems to be safe here, as even if it was not you who did the copying, but rather let’s say an insurance company sending information to a pharmacy benefit manager as an example, or that pharmacy benefit manager doing the same, or a retail pharmacy faxing prescription confirmations, and then later getting rid of the machines for a newer model with a full drive, up to 25,000 documents that could be there. Those were your records sent, but you were not involved in the transmittal in any shape or form, so who knows what could be found!

What causes this, “tech denial” and lack of awareness! Now some folks have woken up to this fact but there are so many that have no clue, so it’s a haven for identity theft. Just think of a hospital dumping a copy machine without wiping a drive. Copier dealers don’t necessarily want to discuss this as it involves more cost for them to educate customers on wiping drives or having to provide that service. Gee, all about money and making a buck standing in the way again.

Ok, this is a privacy issue, but who’s going to police it, HIPAA for the medical side with perhaps some new regulations, but this goes way beyond just medical so like everything else today we have an issue that require more than one agency to work together, something that has been such a chore for so many today it seems. BD

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (CBS-5) - Copier warehouses across the country are filled with row upon row of used machines ready for resale. But CBS 5 Investigates found many of them hold private and sensitive information never cleared from internal hard drives.

What most people think of as copy machines are these days known as "multi-function machines" that also scan, fax and even email. But to do all that, the machines store copies of documents on hard drives in a range of sizes.

John Juntenen founded a Sacramento-area company focused on securing copier data. He said the hard drives can hold as many as 25,000 documents.