According to South African Law, everyone has the right to privacy (Section 14 of Constitution of South Africa, 1996). The right to privacy includes a right to protection against the unlawful collection, retention, dissemination and use of personal information. What does this mean in the World of Printing? It means pages printed with personal information need to be controlled, but how do you do this?
It can be done in two ways:
- For smaller businesses, without proper print server infrastructure in place:
- Implement secure release of prints through enabling the build in secure capabilities of the Multi-Functional Device (MFD).
- Ask your hardware vendor or IT personnel to assist with this. The print job that you have printed will be sent to the MFD and stored on the built in hard drive of the MFD. Once you have entered a pin number on the MFD, the print job will be released.
- This requires more management by your IT Personnel.
- For larger organisations with proper print server infrastructure in place:
- Implement software that can do this for you. The print job will be sent to a print server. The print server will hold the print job until you, as the user, authenticate with a pin at the MFD and then release the print job from the print server.
There are multiple advantages in doing it this way, they are:
- The device is locked down. Only the owner who printed the print job can release it at the MFD.
- Centralised control of print driver and print queues. Single installation of the print driver on the print server. This means that you do not need to load software on every user’s workstation.
- Centralised control of the behaviour of the device, you can implement policies such as, allowing certain users to print only in mono and restrict them from printing in colour. Let certain users print only in duplex (both sides of the page). Force certain behaviour like allowing emails to be printed only in mono.
- Implement software that can do this for you. The print job will be sent to a print server. The print server will hold the print job until you, as the user, authenticate with a pin at the MFD and then release the print job from the print server.
- Be SMART, you can implement Find-Me printing, by doing this you can print to a central queue on the print server and then release the print job at any MFD. A great benefit of this is, if you have a hardware failure, you just go to the next device.
- If you did not release your print job within a certain time-frame, the server will automatically delete the print. Great cost saving.
If you do not use one of the above options, your business will not be POPI Act compliant.
Need more information on Print Management Software? Please complete the below form to request a call from a Green Office Consultant.
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