Are Digital Copiers Targets for E-Discovery?

In April 2010, CBS News ran a story about the relative lack of information security involving digital copiers commonly found in most office settings. Working with a copier security expert, CBS News purchased four used copiers based on price and the number of copies on the meter. According to the reporter, the copier hard disk drives were removed and "[scanned] using forensic software ... available free on the internet," and images of documents which had been copied or scanned were found stored on the hard drives.

In one instance the reporter claims "tens of thousands of documents" were found on one copier while 300 documents were found on another. The reader was left with the impression that the images of potentially sensitive documents were stored on the copier hard drives in plain sight, so to speak. What the reporter failed to properly explain is that the document images that were found came from the unallocated space[FOOTNOTE 1] of the hard drives and had to be recovered -- the files were not available without the use of special software to find and view them.

After the news story was televised, it was only a matter of days before it was circulated in e-mails, blogs, and websites, with many legal industry observers opining at length about the possible ramifications of targeting digital copiers for litigation holds and electronic discovery requests. Before determining the significance of a copier as a potential repository of information, it is important to understand how digital copiers create, store, and delete data. Despite using the same storage device found in a PC, copiers are more like printers in how they use available memory.

When a document is sent to a printer it is stored temporarily in the volatile memory[FOOTNOTE 2] (RAM) of the device until it is printed. Unlike printers, copiers and multifunction printers perform many additional functions, such as scanning and printing, which require additional memory to provide adequate performance. As a result, the majority of copiers use non-volatile memory,[FOOTNOTE 3] such as a hard disk drive, to temporarily store images of documents queued for copying, faxing, printing, or scanning. The images are stored on hard drives as long as necessary to complete the requested work or job, then they are discarded

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Source: Law.com
By: Rich Melville