There’s always a certain degree of risk involved when you decide to print confidential information on a shared printer or in a public place. Usually, large offices have shared printers and we all know how insecure it is to use these printers, especially when it comes to printing very important and private documents.

Nevertheless, not a lot of people try to do anything about it, thinking that there’s no solution to it other than getting a private printer. Of course, buying a new printer in an office is not something that sounds feasible and thus, the whole idea comes to rest. So, is there anything that you can actually do in order to make sure that you are printing your confidential documents in a secure and safe environment? Let’s find out in this post.

Whether it is an office or a home use printer, the protection comes from the driver used for the printer. If we talk about public places, such as schools, colleges, or public library, risk reduction majorly depend upon the steps the computers operators of the institution take to promote security.

Secure Networked Printing

There are number of options for networked printers that allow you to send private print jobs. HP, Xerox and Brother are some companies that offer this feature in their high-end printer models. In order to use private printing, you will be required to enter a four-digit code or PIN before sending the printing job to the printer. Re-enter the PIN on the ten-digit keypad of the printer. It is important to make sure that the PIN entered in both the scenarios is same, otherwise the private printing job will start showing errors. There are another variety of machines that ask you to provide correct user name and name of the document to be printed. The best part of using these kinds of private printing models is that the printer automatically deletes the job from its memory.

The procedure for private printing is quite similar for the printer driver of each brand. Most models are programmed to accomplish the task on their own. All you need to do is follow the given steps and get the pleasure of privately printing your confidential documents.

• Click on File
• Give Print command or press Ctrl + P.
• Enter the four-digit PIN or access code)
• Type the option for a name Secure Printing In Public

Most of the reputed academic institutions like schools, colleges, and public libraries use special software to securely do the printing job. This software is paid software and charges customers for each print given. It was developed with a view to prevent students from taking over the top advantage of free printing facilities. However, as the technology evolved, the same software is now used to print securely in these institutions. All you need to do is type your student ID or library card number into the printer driver while trying to print. Some printers are ID Card Printers and may require you to swipe an ID versus typing it in. In the case that the system asks for payment, you will need to pay before printing as well. This is to ensure that the document is being printed only when the receiver is standing in front of it. However, once that’s done, you might need to contact a lanyard printing company to have straps printed with the name of the institution on them, so it becomes easy for the students to wear them.

Alternatively, if we talk about retail print shops for ID cards, do not expect them to use any kind of expensive software or devices to give you a secure printing job. You should just make sure that you find a reliable and trustworthy printing shop, if you cannot afford a printer at home. If you need to print something special event ticket printing, badge/ID printing, etc then you will want to make sure you find a reliable and trustworthy vendor for this.