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Copying Personal Documents Can Risk ID Theft

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Mar 28, 2007 3:21 pm US/Mountain

Copying Personal Documents Can Risk ID Theft

What To Do If You're An Identity Theft Victim

DENVER (CBS4) ―

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One electronics company is warning consumers about the potential dangers of making copies of tax returns or other personal information on copy machines that have hard drives.

Those hard drivers retain data from images that are copied on the machines, leaving people at risk for identity theft.

Experts said people making copies of personal documents at public businesses or other places where the copy machine is accessible to identity thieves should be more cautious.

"Anyone with a little bit of technical know how that could extract the hard drive from the machine could then read any of the data that's on it," said Brian Martin, a computer security consultant.

Sharp Electronics issued a warning to consumer about the possible threat after research showed many people make copies of their tax returns at a business.

Most photocopiers made in the last 5 years have hard drives.

Sharp recommends asking the copy shop if its machines are encrypted. The extra security measure could help protect personal information.

There are no known incidents of someone having their identity stolen by someone accessing information on a copy machine's hard drive.

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