A modern photocopier is basically a computer with a scanner and printer attached. This computer has a hard drive, and scans of images are regularly stored on that drive. This means that when a photocopier is thrown away, that hard drive is filled with pages that the machine copied over its lifetime. As you might expect, some of those pages will contain sensitive information.

This 2011 report was written by the Inspector General of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It found that the organization did nothing to safeguard its photocopiers…