By: Ang Biondo
Recently a CBS news broadcast made many of its viewers aware of a crucial security breach in technology we all considered a harmless unique convenience. Many of us use this convenience daily and never give it a second thought; un-aware of the imposition and danger that lurks somewhere in the future. Our private personal information is about to be made public. This imposing technology is recording information pertinent to our private personal lives that may be shared with the WORLD, without our knowledge or permission.
Yup! – Personal information that is required of us by those we must deal with ie: doctors, banks, insurance companies, etc. We give this information assuming that it will be maintained in their files of record and not go any further. These records like that listed on our driver’s license, birth certificate, medical records, mortgage, banking, and various account information, etc., etc., etc., and we don’t even think twice about it.
The culprit is the innocent looking copy machine in every office with which we do business. The CBS report made us aware of the presence of a hard drive in copiers that record a copy of every document or photo that is copied in it. If you missed the CBS report, be sure to watch this ‘YouTube’ video:
So, now that you are aware of this – what should you do to prevent additional imposition on your privacy and help protect your personal information from being shared with the world? Well, here are some things that might help, but unfortunately are by all means not fool-proof.
- Use your own scanner attached to your home computer to scan a copy of your new insurance card/s or personal documents to present to those who require it, ie. your doctor’s office, Social Security Office, potential employer etc., so they won’t have to make a copy on their leased machine or one that will eventually be traded for a new one. If you don’t have a scanner, you can purchase one on-line for under $50.00.
- I have compiled a list of my current medications, surgeries, allergies, and pertinent information usual lists on the medical form most doctors offices require you to fill out on an annual basis. This saves me time by leaving only the information I don’t have listed to fill out. The rest of the questions I qualify with a statement to ‘see attached’.
You can also scan and organize documents you will be required to share with banking and mortgaging facilities, insurance companies and any other entity you absolutely must share personal information with. Inform those you are mandated to share the information with, that you have been made aware of the presence of a hard-drive in photo-copiers by the CBS report, and that you will make the copies for them. You can even go as far as printing a ‘DO NOT COPY’ warning on the document with a notice of legal repercussion if your request is violated. Let them know that if your privacy is violated by the release of a copy of the document you have entrusted to them, will be considered as an invasion of privacy and you intend to take legal action afforded to you under the law. A simple request to not copy the document will suffice for most of us. However if you feel a need to protect your information you might want to include a statement at the bottom of the document that might say:
- This document is the property of “(you)”, and is submitted to “(the recipient)” to be contained within their files of record. Any information contained herein is supplied solely for their use and is not for any reason to be copied by use of a photo-copier, or device containing or equipped with a recording device such as a hard-drive or multi giga-byte chip capable or may be capable of storing information by analog or digital means.,
Since I am not an attorney and have no formal law training. I offer the above statement solely as a sample text. I strongly suggest that if you have an issue with photo-copiers recording your personal information, you contact an attorney for the proper language or protective statement to use.
I for one appreciate and thank CBS for making me aware of this and intend to contact my Congressional representatives requesting they submit or support a bill to protect the unsuspecting consumer from this intrusion on our privacy. If you would like to write your representatives to encourage them to sponsor or support a bill to make it mandatory to destroy or securely erase these drives with software making it impossible or improbable to recover information stored on it, you can do so by contacting your representatives by clicking on the following link:
According to the report, I doubt that many corporations and business are or were aware of the presence of a hard drive or recording media in their copy machine. It seems to me that this information should have been mandatory information supplied to the purchaser or renter by the manufacturer of the photo-copier.
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