Document Security

Protecting business information

Modern businesses process a lot of information, but often don’t have true visibility of how it is all produced, stored, shared and accessed. This inevitably leads to potential security and compliance risks, including data breaches, unsecured files, human errors and unauthorised access to information.

In addition, an organisation’s document production environment can act as an easy gateway into a corporate network, as printers and photocopiers are often left out of IT security policies. It is a key vulnerability that malicious actors are actively seeking to exploit, and it can cause a huge amount of long-lasting reputational damage.

Safeguarding your documents

To be truly effective document security must be an essential part of an organisation’s document and print management strategy and should consider all six stages of the document lifecycle:

Capture – the ‘on-boarding’ of information, whether that is scanning hard-copy documents, monitoring email or creating and saving documents from an application.
Store – storing documents in either paper-based or an electronic or hybrid file system.
Manage – managing users’ access permissions and version tracking to ensure users are working on the latest documents and audit trails to record every activity involving a document.
Preserve – ensuring documents are retained for a sufficient period and then disposed of securely.
Share – enabling documents to be shared securely with other users or business partners in the most effective way.
Integrate – allowing information to be exchanged between line of business applications, such as accounting or ERP systems.

Protect more, do more

Our document security management solutions and services are a key part of our Document & Printing Services. They solve the challenges around keeping your business documents safe and help you get more work done, using intuitive workflow and automation tools.

We’ll provide the expertise, support and tools to help you develop and manage your document security policy, and safeguard your confidential information across its entire lifecycle, however it is being captured, stored, printed or shared. Plus, our secure document management solutions help you comply with the latest security regulations, such as GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation. Or we can manage it all for you as part of our Managed Print Services.

Benefits of Sharp's document security

Effective document management – your files are stored in structured and secure cloud data repositories (local server-based installations are also available).
Added print security - your documents are protected using print control technology to help ensure that no sensitive information gets left unattended in the printer’s output tray. In addition, watermarks can be added to the printed documents to show who printed them and the time and date of output.
Increased document security – only authorised users can scan documents and controls can be put in place to specify which destinations documents can be sent to. An additional level of security can be provided by adding passwords to documents scanned to PDF format.
Improved document control – hidden text and patterns can be embedded in the background of documents. When an attempt is made to copy the document the hidden text will become visible, so you can easily distinguish a copy from the original. The hidden patterns can even be recognised by a Sharp photocopier to prevent the document from being copied at all.