Whether you know it or not, almost all color laser printers manufactured in recent years have an important feature not listen on the box; a unique identifier. Much like the MAC address on network cards (covered in more depth in another posting), your laser printer is unique. Since most things we have bought of some value have serial numbers, this might not be so concerning, just as our car has the VIN number etched in several places but no-one is saying cars are giving up their privacy. This is where those analogies end though. The reason is, that your laser printer has a technology in it called “Docucolor” (clearly the people who came up with this aren’t beating Saatchi and Saatchi away for job offers. Docucolor uses a matrix of extremely hard to see yellow dots to identify the printer. Using these dots, they can identify the printer’s serial number. Since color laser printers are only sold though a few channels, this makes tracing down the person who purchased the printer (usually with a credit card) fairly easy to find.
Why is this technology there, well in the first place, it was placed in color laser printers since their quality has gotten so good that the Secret Service (the part of government that’s responsible for protection of the treasury as well as protecting our officials) was worried that counterfeiters could just print money. To be able to trace this activity they had Xerox install this technology. It should also be noted that popular image editing software also inhibits this by looking at images loaded into it and if the image looks too much like currency then the program won’t allow its scan/import.
So the roots of this seem valid enough, the problem is that once the technology is out there, it is that much easier for those who can trace this information to remove the anonymity of those that have made printouts. What makes it more nefarious is that it is done surreptitiously, so people do not know that there is identifiable information in their printouts. Imagine what would have been the outcome if the Dunlap Broadsides would have identified which of our founding fathers signed that treasonous declaration that helped launch this great nation.
As a practical matter, if you are worried about being traced though a laser printer, I would suggest using an inkjet printer (they are pretty disposable these days). Since Docucolor applies a date stamp, uses should consider that using public printers (Universities, workplaces, print shops (kinkos), etc.) will most likely create a record of your printing through security cameras. It’s also possible that between security cameras, and your payment record (unless you pay cash), you may provide a way to identify yourself when you are making these printouts.
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