Set privacy options

As a print tracking system, most organizations and users expect PaperCut NG/MF to record all printing activity. For organizations concerned that users might require more privacy than the default level of tracking affords, you can enable or disable features to suit. E.g. if the content of documents should not be viewed by PaperCut NG/MF administrators, or disabling the Print ArchivingPaperCut's Print Archiving stores an historic record of all printed content. This allows approved administrators to browse and review the content of past print jobs within their environment. feature. You can enable and disable many features at Options > General .

Set the privacy options

1. Click the Options tab. The General page is displayed.

2. In the Privacy Options area, select any of the following options as required:

   • Omit document names from the Job Log—Select this option if you do not want to include the document name of print jobs in the logs. Document names can include identifying information about a user or the nature of their print job.

   • Remove document information from the Job Log after—Select this option if you want document-identifying data elements of jobs that are older than a set time period (default: 6 months) to be permanently removed (redacted) from the Job Logs page. If selected and configured, this is included in the daily scheduled maintenance routine. The document-identifying data elements that are impacted by this include:

     • date – (optional) the time stamp in the job date is changed to 11:00:00 AM.

       NOTE

       To change the job time stamp to 11am, set the job.privacy.redact-timestamp.enabled config keyA config key stores information about a specific advanced setting in PaperCut. Config keys are editable by an administrator in the Config Editor. to Y. For more information about editing config keys, see Using the Advanced Config Editor.

     • print archives – thumbnail previews are no longer displayed and cannot be clicked to view the document or to download the spool fileA print spool file is generated when a user sends a document to a printer. The print spool stores the print job information, and sits in a print queue until it is retrieved and printed by a printer..

     • document name – are displayed as being redacted by the system, with the redact time stamp, instead of the actual name of the document.

     • job size – the size of the job is displayed as 0KB.

     • client machine – the machine from which the job was printed is displayed as being redacted by the system.

     • comments – comments that have been added to the log are no longer displayed.

     • watermarkingWatermarking is a feature that allows you to print a small portion of text to the top or bottom margin of every page. Typical uses of watermarking include adding a username to the bottom of every page to help identify the owner, writing job metadata in the footer such as print time, printer or document name, and applying a digital signature to help track and verify documents. signature – digital signatures that have been applied using watermarking are displayed as being redacted by the system, with the redact time stamp, instead of the actual document name.

     For more information on redacting other document-identifying data elements using server commands, see Server commands (server-command)

     NOTE

     All departmental, group, and personal reports will still reflect the relevant printer usage.

   • Anonymize jobs (don't link jobs with users)—Select this option to delete any links in the database between a user and a print job after a print job has been processed.

     This anonymization is achieved by re-assigning the job to a different, specified user once the job has completed. The default and recommended approach is to assign jobs to a user called anonymous. If this user does not exist at the time the feature is enabled then a new internal (non-domain) user with the configured name is created (this user has no password, so cannot be used to log in).

     Viewing the Job Log for this anonymous user shows all jobs in the system. The transactions (charging) for jobs are still applied to the original user, however, so that features such as print quotas continue to work as expected. Transaction times and job logThe job log retains a history of all print jobs including the following details: the user who printed (ie. their network user ID), the time of the print event, the number of pages, document attributes such as color, duplex, grayscale, paper size, document area, paper length, where the print job originated from (the workstation name or IP address), and the document name and type (for example, a Word document’s file name). times could be cross-referenced to potentially determine a link, as they will be close together in time. If this is a concern, then use the options at Options > Backups > Automatic Backups to delete transaction logs older than a given age.

     Selecting this option means that any functionality requiring a link between a user and a job (once the job has completed) is no longer available. This includes user-based reporting and job refunds. It is recommended that this option is only enabled if strictly required.

3. Click Apply.