The New Jersey legislature, for instance, this week passed a bill (A-1238) that says copy machines and scanners should have their hard drives erased or otherwise modified to make sure records stored digitally on them are no longer viewable after the owner gets rid of the machines. That's according to the , which says the bill's sponsors, New Jersey legislators Paul Moriarty, Herb Conaway and Dan Benson, view this as a way to prevent identity theft when digital copiers and scanners are sold on to others.

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The penalty for not doing that in the way demanded under the bill could run as high as $2,500, and while some might view this as legislative overkill, the concept that printing on digital machines can have privacy and security implications has been long understood by industry experts.

HP, for example, says enterprises are putting in security controls for modern printers used in business to put the brakes on data loss and paper waste by individuals who remotely run print jobs but later forget all about them. This apparently happens a lot.

HP consultant for financial services Roger Lang says the technique known as "" keeps track of print jobs by requiring users to authenticate with a proximity ID card right at the printer in order to receive the print jobs they ordered. Otherwise these jobs are simply digitally stored and not printed out. Jet Mobile and Pharos Systems are among other vendors offering such secure printing capabilities.