HP Printers Sends Back Data to HP Though Instant Ink program

HP has been aggressive with their printers, in the past detecting and blocking non-HP cartridges and what now. There's a new low though, as it turns out the latest generations printers send back info and telemetry to HP.

HP is sending back data on what you print how many times and what now, so far that's all fine. Now I know. We live in an age and era where all data is grabbed, that includes your entire life from things on and usage of your smartphone up-to OSes and graphics cards drivers sending back telemetry up-to-the Facebooks and other services.

Robert Heaton did a bit of research and the Instant Ink program monitors our printer so that when you run out of Ink, you instantly get send a new batch. However, it's just not Ink data info that HP is retrieving. By enrolling in the Instant Ink service, you are authorizing HP to remotely monitor page count, ink levels, the type of documents you print, the type of device you use to print a particular document and whether the last cartridge you used was new or used. Again so far, that's okay. They are also allowed to use and share (inevitably could sell) your information like name, address, email, printer model, printer serial number with the retailer that you purchased the subscription from.

"In summary, HP wants its printer to collect all kinds of data that a reasonable person would never expect it to. This includes metadata about your devices, as well as information about all the documents that you print, including timestamps, number of pages, and the application doing the printing (HP state that they do stop short of looking at the contents of your documents).

Product Usage Data – We collect product usage data such as pages printed, print mode, media used, ink or toner brand, file type printed (.pdf, .jpg, etc.), application used for printing (Word, Excel, Adobe Photoshop, etc.), file size, time stamp, and usage and status of other printer supplies. We do not scan or collect the content of any file or information that might be displayed by an application.

Device Data – We collect information about your computer, printer and/or device such as operating system, firmware, amount of memory, region, language, time zone, model number, first start date, age of device, device manufacture date, browser version, device manufacturer, connection port, warranty status, unique device identifiers, advertising identifiers and additional technical information that varies by product."

Note the last column in this “Privacy Matrix”, which states that “Product Usage Data” and “Device Data” (amongst many other types of data) are collected and shared with “service providers” for purposes of selling data. The problem here that if the data would be anonymous it would be fine, however, HP seems to be collecting more info than needed for your Ink refresh as opposed to running statistical values.

It's a bit of a fine line where HP is balancing on, then again, maybe an acceptable one for those that join that program. Then again, if you want ink to be send at your home, HP is going to need a certain amount of your data. It's just how they use it though.