Offices today rely more and more on digital systems. To cope with the demands of technology, printers today are equipped with multiple functions that enable them to be more useful to the modern office. Now, they are no longer just printers. They are also scanners and photocopiers. With this added load, offices need to stock up on more HP Refills to ensure they don’t run out of supplies during important periods!

All of the data that are digitized, stored, and transmitted on a day-to-day basis all add up to huge chunks of “big data”—which are very large sets of information that can be analyzed with computers to extract important information as to how an office goes about its daily business. This is the type of data which should be kept confidential to protect a company’s interests.

Tips on how to protect your data

As printers occupy an important place in the office’s information and communication stream, workplaces should be very careful about the handling of data. This is because data can actually be intercepted in this kind of environment and can fall into the wrong hands. Here are some steps on how to protect your company’s information:

1.   Don’t leave it laying around.  Employees should not leave print jobs on the printer.
2.   Be quick. If there is sensitive information being printed on a shared printer, staff should see to it that they immediately retrieve their printouts. This means they should be going to the printer right after clicking “print” so they can collect it once it is printed out. This means no detours for coffee, phone calls, or even to grab HP Refills.
3.   Check before tossing. Many printers today have a hard drive to store print jobs in. If your office is replacing an old printer, make sure to secure the old drive, otherwise, your data may fall into the wrong hands.

As we have seen, printers are very important and need to be secured because they are an important link in your office’s chain of big data. Securing your information should be part of the office policy, and this includes your printer.