Security matters: Which is riskier – data on paper or in digital form?
A very interesting article on Financial Times (UK) details how IT created a paradox to paper and security - IT has made the paper document less secure (e.g. by making printing of secure documents very easy), and is now struggling to get back to similar (or higher) levels of security for the paper document.
Besides giving interesting figures on paper growth in the UK (3.6% increase in office paper usage in 2006) and Europe (around 1% - from 10 million tons paper in 2004), this article starts with a provocative statement - ”in many circumstances, paper is more secure than digital technology”.
This very interesting reading confirms the constant gap between the paper and electronic world- gap which is being addressed by a number of Document 2.0 and 3.0 technologies as I blogged a number on times upon.
The only downside to this article in my view is the example chosen to illustrate IT technologies that help bridge that gap: HP’s “pull printing”. This kind of document management solution is really a must-have for any player in the print management or office services field, and is not by far unique to HP (Xerox has provided PIN-protected secure release for ages, and now provides a comprehensive set of offerings for enabling more complex identifications, including Xerox Secure Print, Equitrac office, and a many others - see more on Xerox’s security page).
It might have been more judicious to mention differentiating technologies that can secure the paper output, such as the Xerox ones I blogged upon earlier: Glossmarks, Correlation Marks, UV marks, IR marks, or microprinting, or some that the article alluded to: e.g. optically-variable images or RFID tracking capabilities.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing. This is something for our information security manager…