Printing private letter at work

Bowling_4_Gold

If you are going to do it, here's a tip... Don't do it at the extremes of the working day.

I work in IT and we log all print jobs. Admittedly we don't keep a copy of the actual document sent to print but do log time, date, pages, copies, file name, PC name and user account. We started logging as people would send often sensitive documents to public printers and not come and collect the jobs- which was a security concern as well as a huge waste of resources. We have also implemented pull-printing (also known as follow-me printing) to reduce wastage.

When I can be bothered to look at the print logs, I only check a few- normally the first 5 or 6 and the last 5 or 6 of a particular day. Anything like 'BK-Vouchers.pdf' or 'Tenancy agreement.docx' sticks out like a sore thumb. Be careful.

londonTiger

Bowling_4_Gold wrote: »

If you are going to do it, here's a tip... Don't do it at the extremes of the working day.

I work in IT and we log all print jobs. Admittedly we don't keep a copy of the actual document sent to print but do log time, date, pages, copies, file name, PC name and user account. We started logging as people would send often sensitive documents to public printers and not come and collect the jobs- which was a security concern as well as a huge waste of resources. We have also implemented pull-printing (also known as follow-me printing) to reduce wastage.

When I can be bothered to look at the print logs, I only check a few- normally the first 5 or 6 and the last 5 or 6 of a particular day. Anything like 'BK-Vouchers.pdf' or 'Tenancy agreement.docx' sticks out like a sore thumb. Be careful.

is it even realistically possible to for third party to view the files that get sent to the printer? dont computers generate a raw, uncompressesed image file to send to printers which would be too big to archive on a mass scale?

what you descibed are just meta data of the print job, which reveals nothing apart from the file name. which could be changed to something very generic

gjchester

londonTiger wrote: »

is it even realistically possible to for third party to view the files that get sent to the printer? dont computers generate a raw, uncompressesed image file to send to printers which would be too big to archive on a mass scale?

what you descibed are just meta data of the print job, which reveals nothing apart from the file name. which could be changed to something very generic

Most new enterprise printers are the multi function units and have internal hard drive, It could be taken from there, or from the server. Most are not secure, if you took a drive out of an old printer you could probably recover files that had been printed in the past without too much trouble.


Its possible but unlikely the company copies everything that is printed, most things are usually sent as postscript these days so its universal, and can be printed anywhere, they can also be easily read by something like Ghostscript.


However knowing it can be done, and actually doing it are two things, It will all depend on print volumes, My printing has dropped massively over the last few years as we do most things that require a signature electronically now, and if that's the case a few odd documents are easier to check than hundreds or thousands.