Do you have a copier?  A printer? A fax? Do you use it most days to copy or print confidential information? Well here is some rather worrying news that you ought to be aware of.

The majority of people don’t realise that most scanners, copiers, faxes and multifunctional printers, certainly ones manufactured since the early 2000′s have hard drives in them.  These hard disks copy and store every single piece of information that you put through them.  This includes anything that you have scanned, anything that you have copied, printed or in some cases even faxed.

Now, consider this – When you replace or upgrade a PC or laptop, people usually (as its been drummed into them by people like me) remove the hard disk, erase the data or destroy the disk before either recycling the machine, giving it away, selling it on or dumping it.  What happens when the lease on your copier expires and you upgrade it?  Do you clear its hard drive before you return it?  I’m guessing, like most people, you don’t.

Recently in America, when an undercover team looked into a number of places that re-sell used copiers and the like they recovered thousands of documents, images, photos, bank statements, accounts records etc from the many hard drives that were left, untouched, in the old copiers – all of which were waiting to be resold.  Imagine if everything that you have ever printed, photocopied or scanned could be seen by someone else? A competitor perhaps? Or even more worrying, an undesirable?  It could have devestating results for both you and your business.

Computer Rescue Ltd is all about Total Care for all things that concern your data.  If you do have a copier that has seen better days or a multifunctional printer, scanner that you are thinking of recycling and you want the data erased, get in touch and we will help you to clear it.