You shred all personal documents. You regularly change computer passwords. You deposit all outgoing mail into a locked mailbox. You even make sure the motherboard of your old laptop is destroyed before it’s recycled.
So what’s left to fear?
How about the office copy machine? Yes, the ubiquitous copy machine. This includes the one at your dentist, accountant or lawyer’s office. And it could be the one in your own office.
Most copy machines use hard drives to store every document that has been scanned, printed, faxed or e-mailed. The electronic file stays there until someone removes it or new documents put out the oldest ones.
It’s an ID thief’s dream.
So far, no one is legally responsible to wipe copier drives clean of potentially damaging data. Warehouses all over America are full of used copy machines containing millions of files just waiting to be mined by unscrupulous criminal profiteers.
Even more worrisome is that an estimated 70 percent of these machines will ultimately land overseas in China, Europe, everywhere. And data-filled hard drives that are salvaged from machines are sent to E-waste recyclers; many wind up for sale online.
Learn more here.
Have you taken steps to wipe your copy machine’s hard drive clean before recycling it?