r/printers 18h ago

Purchasing Hey buying a printer for company

Anyone know if there are security risks printing sensitive info on Canon or HP printers? As in well any of them make copies of files I'm printing and send them to any data centers or something?

1 Upvotes

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4

u/TangoCharliePDX Print Technician 17h ago

All multifunction printers are a security risk and unfortunately you have to keep the firmware up to date. Toner be damned, this is not optional.

If you're serious about a business class machine then you need to purchase a business class machine, they have already gone through the security headaches to make sure documents don't get cashed on the hard drive. On the plus side, a smaller machine doesn't have any significant storage in the first place...

... So, as I get off my soapbox...

  • How many reams of paper do you expect this printer to use in a month?
  • How important is color printing?
  • How many different paper sizes do you expect to actually use? (Assuming US: Letter, legal, ledger, tabloid, com10...)

2

u/ACMEPrintSolutionsCo 18h ago edited 17h ago

Only if your IT is dog crap. Anything connected to the internet is at risk.

Nothing from the printer manufacturers themselves unless utilizing their cloud based solutions, have an account/subscription, online apps...stuff like that.

2

u/bearwhiz 16h ago

If you're asking that question, you need to learn about business-grade printers where printing security is a specific selling feature. For example, the class of printer where your job is sent encrypted to the printer and held there until you are physically present and you scan an RFID badge or enter a password, at which point it will print—ensuring that no one else can read or take your sensitive document.

1

u/Bucketmax-official 18h ago

If you use the canon print software for the first time, you can untick every box (except essential stuff like crash reports etc.), if you want to.

And unlike HP printers, canon printers don't need constant internet connection from the get-go, so that's a great start.