Xippa says "look carefully at your equipment leases. Consider Identity theft. "

Xippa says:

Copier Contracts need to guard against identity theft. Many Copier Companies charge an "inflated" fee for replacing and putting in a clean hard drive at lease end. By building it into you are better served.

Press Copy to have your Identity Stolen
By Melissa Yeager, WINK News Florida
Story Updated: Nov 12, 2009 at 8:53 PM EST

"56 percent of people victims of ID theft have no idea how perpetrators got their ID," said Sean O'Leary of Digital Copier Security, "And we can assume a portion or large is a result of data breeches from photocopiers."

O'Leary says he believes most companies don't realize their copy machines have hard drives.

"We just take it for granted this little photocopier sitting in the corner of an office is safe and innocuous," said O'Leary, "But in reality with that hard drive its storing personal information."

Today's copy machines do a whole lot more than copy. They print. They scan. They email. They fax. The machine has to have a way to remember all that information. Between 1998 and 2002, companies began equipping copy machines with hard drives.

O'Leary says most companies lease their copy machines. He suspects most have no idea when they trade in their old copier, they're also turning over a whole lot of personal information.

"If you think about it, when you go to a new employer you start a new job first they they do in your orientation is they take a copy of your drivers license and your social security card," said O'Leary, "And that information is maintained on that photocopier so it basically becomes an identity theft's dream."