Private Information Stolen From Used Copiers

Social Security numbers, tax returns, bank accounts, health test results: All of that very private information is being stolen, and you won't believe the source.

Copy machines.

You'll find them for sale all over the Internet. And there are warehouses all over the world, where used machines are waiting to be leased out to new customers. But what's lurking inside them is what concerns Sean O'Leary of Tacoma.

“We’ve found thousands of sets of complete tax returns,” he told KIRO 7 Consumer Investigator Amy Clancy. “We’ve found medical records that are nothing short of alarming, and should never be out in the public realm.”

O'Leary works for Digital Copier Security Incorporated, a California-based company that he says stumbled upon an alarming discovery by accident. The company's owner bought a used copier and was able to print documents that had been copied by the machine's previous owner. The reason: The hard-drive inside the copier had not been wiped clean.

A few examples of what the company has found: A tax return, a student's photo, home address and class schedule; a patient's psychological evaluation and another patient's positive HIV history.

And O'Leary tells Clancy this type of information breach happens every day. “We estimate between 2,000 and 3,000 per day nationwide are being turned into this secondary wholesale market, and the user, let’s say the medical clinic, has lost complete control over where that information goes from that point forward. That’s a violation of federal law.”

Attorney General Rob McKenna says it's also a violation here in Washington. “State law requires that information be disposed of properly, and sending an old copier out the door without wiping the hard drive does not constitute safe disposal, proper disposal,” McKenna tells Clancy.

Aric Manion is President of Kelley Imaging Systems in Kent. He says his copier leasing company is trying to spread the word to its customers, including banks and medical offices, about the very real identity theft dangers these machines can hold.

“If we pick anything up, we give them a letter that says there could be valuable information on this, would you like us, for a fee, to replace that hard drive on that, or take it out and give it back to you,” he tells Clancy. But Manion says fewer than 20 percent of his customers choose to pay the couple hundred dollars per machine extra to have the hard drives wiped clean, which means, of the dozens of copiers currently in his warehouse, a vast majority most likely still contain some very private information.

“Most of the equipment in on lease will get shipped to San Diego, or California, where it’s wholesaled out from there,” Manion tells Clancy.

Clancy: “With hard drives in place?”

Manion: “Correct.”

Clancy: “That haven’t been cleaned?”

Manion: “Correct.”

Sean O’Leary explains the danger this way: “Your doctor would never leave a file cabinet set full of patient records on the sidewalk for anybody to come and take. Yet, that’s essentially what’s happening in reality when that copier goes back into that wholesale marketplace without that hard drive being dealt with.” So, what about your private information?

McKenna and O’Leary tell Clancy you should talk to your employer, banker, doctor, etc. about what he or she does with copier hard drives. Because, ultimately, according to the AG, they are responsible for keeping that information private.

If you’d like more information on copier security click here: http://www.copiersecurity.com/the-risk.html