The trusty copier has been in offices for years. No longer the humble duplicator, it’s been changing, developing, and getting smarter until it’s also a printer, scanner, and fax machine. Until CBS News opened our eyes recently, many of us never thought about the hidden hard drive it now contains to enable it to do all these things*.    

It’s a potential problem when you have a spy faithfully recording everything you copy, print, scan, and fax. At least some of those documents probably contain sensitive information relating to your clients or your organization. 

No worries, though, because the copier is too big and heavy for thieves to want to steal it, right? True, but sooner or later it will get old and you’ll want to trade it in or dispose of it some other way. What to do then? Options include:

• Erasing the hard drive. You can buy software to do this erasing, but the jury is out on how effective it is. Some say wiping it of data a couple of times will do the trick, but others insist the data is still recoverable.
• Removing the hard drive and destroying it. While this task isn’t easy, at least you know your sensitive information won’t wind up in the wrong hands.

As for Patrick & Robinson, our clients depend on us to take care of the information they entrust to us. You can be sure we’ll be taking a screwdriver and mallet to Old Sharpy when it’s outlived its usefulness.

Need an accountant you can depend on? Call us at 904-396-5400.

*(View Copy Machines: Risky Business? on You Tube if you haven’t seen it yet.)

Filed under: General by Lynn Barwell