• Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • 212-695-5588
  • Contact
  • Client Login
Superior Office Solutions
  • Print Services
    • Equipment And Leasing
      • Production Printers
      • Office Copiers MFPs
      • Wide Format Printers
      • Desktop Printers
      • Used & Refurbished Machines
    • Service And Support
      • Production Print Services
      • Printer Copier Repairs
    • Brands
      • Canon
      • Kyocera
      • Konica Minolta
    • Managed Services
      • Managed Print
      • Document Management
      • Secure Printing
      • Mobile Printing Solutions
  • Business Phone Services
  • Mailing Solutions
    • Postage Meters
    • Folder Inserters
    • Desktop Folders
    • Software
    • Printers
    • Additional Mailroom Equipment
  • Office Water Solutions
  • Resources
    • Testimonials
    • Blog
    • Client Login
  • About
    • Our Reviews
    • Leadership Team
    • Areas We Serve
    • Careers
  • Menu Menu

3 Ways School Printers & Scanners Risk Student Data Privacy

Since the issue of protecting student data privacy was first raised back in 2013, at least 40 states have passed student data privacy laws, including New York. For the most part, the laws focus on how schools (and their outside vendors) collect, use, and protect personally-identifiable student data.

If you’re like most school administrators, you’re aware of federal and state privacy laws and doing your due diligence to make sure vendors aren’t collecting student data and using it inappropriately. However, you may not realize that student data privacy breaches are still happening if your school’s printers are not properly secured.

3 ways student data privacy is compromised by everyday printing and scanning

1. Unattended print jobs

We’ve all done it – sent a print job to a shared printer and then failed to collect it immediately. Every time private student information is printed and left in the output tray, that information is vulnerable and student data privacy can be compromised. In fact, one out of ten security breaches involves printed documents.

The answer is not to go back to expensive personal printers for everybody. Schools have tight budgets and shared multifunction printers are much more cost-effective. But you do need to secure your shared printers by adding user authentication and enabling secure print features. It sounds complicated, but it’s a simple matter of creating accounting and requiring users to log in (authenticate) just as they would log into your network. At the printer or scanner, they log in by entering a PIN code or swiping their ID badge.

Once user authentication is set up, documents will no longer automatically print upon sending the job. The user goes to the printer, logs in, and then their document prints. That means no more sensitive information left sitting in the output tray. If they fail to pick it up, the file is deleted after a pre-set period of time period.

2. Untracked document distribution

Unsecured scanning and faxing are common ways that schools are unknowingly compromising student data privacy. When records are faxed or scanned and emailed without user authentication, anyone can send confidential information without your knowledge (or ability to track who sent it).

Just as you use secure print to protect printed records and information, you can also use it to control electronic distribution of documents through your printer’s other functions, including scanning and faxing. You can do that by limiting user permissions related to faxing or scanning and emailing documents. Plus, user authentication gives you the ability to track user actions, including printing, scanning, emailing, and faxing documents.

3. Unsecured devices

Here’s a sobering fact: schools are not immune from hacker attacks. In 2016, a hacker managed to print racist flyers on printers at more than a dozen college campuses simply by targeting publicly-accessible printers. If your printers are not properly secured, hackers can use them to gain access to your network and your student data.

The problem is so widespread that the Federal Trade Commission has published copier data security guidelines to improve printer security.

Secure your printers by setting up firewalls, shutting down unnecessary services, and setting up data encryption to protect the data in your print jobs that’s stored on the printer. Even better, make sure the printer deleted that data after the print job completes. And, before disposing of any printer, make sure to wipe the data on the hard drive.

Learn more: Printer Security: the Weak Link That Could Take Down Your Network

How to properly manage school printers to protect privacy

In all likelihood, you probably believe your school staff is conscientious and careful not to leave sensitive information lying around or send it to people who should not have it. And maybe they are. But what would happen if you were accused of a security breach? How can you protect yourself and your school’s reputation?

The answer is managed printing. If you have Canon printers, you can use Canon’s uniFLOW Online platform to set up user authentication, permissions, and track print and scan activity. Or, use a multi-vendor platform like PaperCut. It’s an inexpensive solution that protects student data privacy and your peace of mind.

Learn more: New Cloud-Based Print Management from Canon: uniFLOW Online

Plus, managed printing actually saves money!

BONUS: managed printing also saves you money

You probably never expected to find a solution that protects student data and also cuts costs at the same time. It sounds too good to be true, but we promise it’s not. All sorts of organizations save thousands of dollars a year with managed print:

  • Eliminate waste with user authentication (documents no longer get abandoned on the printer)
  • Set up print rules that reduce unnecessary color printing (which costs much more than black and white) and encourage more duplex printing (which saves paper)
  • Track print activity by user (or by team), and let people know you’re watching. You’ll be amazed how quickly they correct their own wasteful printing!

If you’re not tracking printing activity and securing your printers, you’re wasting money. And managed print software helps you take control and reduce that waste.

Read these articles to learn more:

Top 5 Education Printing Challenges & Best Practices to Cut Costs

Managed Print: The Easy Way to Reduce Print Expense

 

Canon wide format printers

Categories

  • Company News
  • Document Management Services
  • Mailing & shipping
  • Managed Print Services
  • Office copy & print
  • Office Telecommunications
  • Office Water Solutions
  • Production print

Contact Us

"*" indicates required fields

About SOS

Superior Office Solutions has been adding a personal touch to the office equipment leasing industry since 1999. With four convenient locations in the tri-state area, we provide world-class equipment and unbeatable service to over 4,000 customers.

Solutions

Equipment and Leasing

Service and Support

Managed Services

Business Phone Services

Contact

Manhattan Office
212-695-5588

Westchester Office
914-332-0100

Long Island Office
516-682-8383

New Jersey Office
732-790-5300

Website by Abstrakt Marketing Group © 2021
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
Wide Format Printer/Scanner: How to Choose the Right Model (Infographic)Wide Format Printer/Scanner: How to Choose the Right Modelschool operating budgetTighten Your School Operating Budget with Managed Printing
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Accept settingsHide notification only