In large organisations such as NHS Trusts and schools and colleges, there are normally several different printing devices scattered around the premises. With the greater connectivity of today’s MFPs, one of the main areas of concern is the security and confidentiality of information that is temporarily stored on hard drives for these devices.

 

Printers have much better functionality nowadays which means that we can use them for a number of different tasks including scanning and storing popular documents, creating print queues and using cloud connections that allow delivery to mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. With all this great new technology, there are a number of questions that businesses and organisations need to be asking themselves.

• Do I have a number of printers that have different ways of keeping data secure?
• Does my MFP provide high grade data encryption so that it can’t be read by outside sources who gain access to the hard drive?
• Am I doing everything to make sure that personal and confidential data is kept safe?

For an organisation such as the NHS the degree of confidentiality required is obviously greater because of the nature of the information being copied and saved. Another issue is how an organisation such as this overwrites or erase data once they have finished with it. Whilst you may think that an ordinary system with an erase function will do the job, it’s not always the case – most government offices use something a lot more robust which ensures information cannot be retrieved even by the most sophisticated hacking software.

If you regularly copy and store sensitive information then it pays to have a closer look at the way your entire hardware is set up and used. Organisations such as the NHS have to make the most of their budgets and they often keep printers and scanners that have become outdated. These can also be scattered across a building without much idea how they are used, who is using them and whether they need to be more secure.

Undertaking a complete print audit for your business or organisation can make a huge difference not only to your costs but to the confidentiality and security of the information that you deal with on a day to day basis. The latest MFPs can be connected together, print jobs queued with a secure retrieval code so that no one else gets hold of that information, and stored documents sent to devices such as smartphones and tablets via the cloud.

In offices in the NHS and quite a few schools across the UK, many members of staff like a personal printer on their desks simply because they can be sure of maintaining confidentiality because it is close by. The new range of MFPs on the market nowadays are designed to provide high level encryption and personal security for anyone worried about the information they are printing or storing getting in the wrong hands.

Combine this with aspects such as secure cloud storage and the ability to send data to mobile devices and you start to get access to a powerful administration tool that can transform the way you do things.

Moving towards a more centralised system also gives organisations a better opportunity to monitor their printing needs, reduce costs, and cut down on their impact on the environment. Undertaking a complete print audit can highlight ways in which your staff can, in fact, work more securely, keeping sensitive data safe with technology that is fit for purpose.