Popular Color Printers May Enable Surveillance
Color printers are growing in popularity as the price declines. Most consumers do not know that when they print documents using color printers that a pattern of yellow dots invisible to the eye reveals the device's serial number. A serial number may be used to trace printed documents back to the printer used. If the printer was purchase using a credit card instead of cash then the document may be attributed rightly or wrongly to a particular person or entity.
Printer dots raise privacy concerns, USA Today, July 14, 2008
