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Identity Theft by a Photocopier?

Posted on Mar 21, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Here one that you should at least be aware of. It’s possible that sensitive documents you copy on a photocopy machine, at a public place or work, could be an ID theft risk. Many of these devices now have small computers or hard drives inside and your document could be saved on there and reproducible by someone with access. Not a pleasant thought. But what a brilliant scam idea—set up low cost copy machines in public places and every so often pull the hard drives and look for some goodies. And just think of the gold mine of data a place like FedEx Kinko’s has on its hands.

I’m not sure if I even have a tip for you. No way I can think of to know if the machine is storing documents. I suppose you might avoid public copy machines for copying tax documents and the like.

More from Bruce Schneier.