Recycling an old printer is a great idea, but make sure to delete your private data first! But, it’s only a printer you say?
Like computers, printers have both volatile memory (like computer RAM) which gets lost when you turn the printer off and non-volatile memory (like computer hard drives) which sticks around until it’s deleted. Non-volatile memory is what you need to worry about when disposing of printers. If you print confidential documents for you or your clients, this can be a huge security risk.
Today’s all-in-one printers have internal storage to support their scanner, copier and fax features. A factory reset will delete any personal information and return basic settings to the default. Or, better yet, remove the hard drive and physically destroy it.
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First published in our June 2019 IT Radix Resource newsletter