April 20, 2010 7:53 PM

CBS News Investigation into Photocopiers Raises Questions in Buffalo

By
Emily Rand
Topics
News

On the heels of CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian's investigation into documents stored on digital photocopier hard drives, CBS affiliate WIVB reports that fingers are being pointed in Buffalo, NY.

Two of the four copiers - randomly purchased by CBS News from a used copier warehouse in New Jersey - happened to be from the Buffalo Police Department.

The copiers were loaded with confidential documents, from police reports to lists of wanted sex offenders.

Buffalo City Byron Mayor Brown said he would refrain from commenting on our report until the hard drives we found in the copiers were returned, telling a WIVB reporter, "I think we're gonna wait for the information to get back."

Added the mayor's spokesman, Peter Cutler: "It's in the hands of legal right now."

Our report prompted Buffalo Common Council President David Franczyk to ask some questions of his own. 

"City of Buffalo doesn't want to be on national news for something like that, and I guess my question is, did [copier manufacturer] Toshiba make the City of Buffalo aware that those hard drives were there?" Franczyk asked.

City Attorney Diane O'Gorman told WIVB it's still unclear whether Toshiba or the city's purchasing department was responsible for erasing the data.

In addition to the two Buffalo copiers, we bought two others: one from a Bronx construction company, which still had a list of employees names and social security numbers on its hard drive, and the other used by a New York-based Insurance company, Affinity Health Plan, which had patients' medical records and prescription information on the hard drive.

Watch Armen Keteyian's Video Below


Add a Comment See all 17 Comments
by gtpillsdotcom July 11, 2011 11:30 AM EDT
Sounds like another scam to make money by fear mongering. Now every time I make a photocopy of my butt, I have the fear that copies will be distributed far and wide.
Reply to this comment
by budget-copiers September 14, 2010 2:06 PM EDT
I agree, toshiba has always had mil spec security avalible to encrypt there hard drives most customers dont use it also the hard drives can be factory wiped in a few minutes making any data unrecoverable. I have been selling off lease toshiba copiers for years and have never had 1 problem with this. www.budgetcopiers.com
Reply to this comment
by neorazz May 27, 2010 10:17 AM EDT
this is nothing more than media sensationalism stirring up tecnophobes the files store on the copiers shown are in pdf format toshiba copiers do not save files in pdf format intentionaly those files were stored there because someone somewhere needed them if the proper manufature erasure procdure had been follwed with a little common sense this is never an issue i challenge cbs to interview an actual copier technican as opposed to some guy trying to promote his file cleaning service.
http://fyi.toshiba.com/fyi/content/downloads/SecurityCustomerLetter.doc
www.copiers.toshiba.com/usa/security.

http://fyi.toshiba.com/fyi/content/downloads/SecurityQA.doc

toshiba has always had mil spec security avalible to encrypt there hard drives most customers dont use it also the hard drives can be factory wiped in a few minutes making any data unrecoverable
Reply to this comment
by Joe CNET April 24, 2010 10:17 PM EDT
I work for a Buffalo NY locally owned and operated company that would address this issue once and for all for anyone that needs information security that is a challenge for every business and government agency. This is a sample of what we sell/service and would be more then happy to offer to help.
www.semshred.com/

This is our website.
www.wnyriso.com/
Reply to this comment
by lynwoody April 22, 2010 4:26 PM EDT
Xerox digital equipment actually uses encryption and clears the hard drive after each job.
Reply to this comment
by bradkt1 April 21, 2010 10:04 AM EDT
I certainly didn't know this and I am a retired lawyer who used to work for 3 different federal agencies. I can pretty much assure you that your average government worker wouldn't have known this. All we wanted to know was whether someone was using the photocopier and when could we use it. All kinds of sensitive documents are copied in an agency's legal department...evidentiary exhibits and business records, for starters. Them of course, there is the personal information.

We only cared about the photocopying machine when it broke down or got jammed and someone had to come and fix it...or we had to open it up and figure out how to get the paper that had jammed out.

I suspect that it is like this in every office.

Government agencies that had a major security presence knew about the hard drives on computers, but I doubt that they knew this about photocopiers.
Reply to this comment
by porcine_aviator April 21, 2010 9:48 AM EDT
I really hope this spurs a class action lawsuit. The copier companies have basically been enabling identity theft rings and organized crime, simply because they are either stupid or lazy or both. There is no reason to use a hard drive or any other nonvolatile memory (DRAM is cheap).
Reply to this comment
by aubfmet April 21, 2010 8:54 AM EDT
I make 2 copies of my tax return on the grocery store copier every year. I don't want that info passed around.
Reply to this comment
by edgy44 April 21, 2010 3:03 AM EDT
Our company actually removes the hard drives from every computer and copier. We change out our stuff every three years. The computers are then sold by the pallet. We have a machine that eats one hard drive every 10 minutes. It's like a huge shredder. Very noisy gadget, and all that is left looks like rabbit food. We've found that the drives are easy to disassemble, and the platters removes, and that puts less wear and tear on the disk eater. Done this way you get a nice pure aluminum that can be sold to metal scrappers at a higher price. It's very green.
Reply to this comment
by porcine_aviator April 21, 2010 9:50 AM EDT
that's nice, but if these copier company morons would have done heir job properly and installed DRAM instead of hard rives, you wouldn't have needed to go through all of that.
by couptaker April 20, 2010 11:24 PM EDT
It most likely has the police chiefs butt on it
Reply to this comment
See all 17 Comments
.

Follow CBS News Investigates

Scroll Left
Scroll Right More »
CBS News on Facebook
  • Building You a Better Morning

  • CBS This Morning

    "CBS This Morning," anchored by Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Erica Hill, airs weekdays from 7 to 9 a.m. ET and at the same time in other time zones.
    Learn more...