JP2006217528A - Image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming apparatus capable of determining whether a paper document is electronically transferred by printing a mark about a paper document (original) that is scanned and subjected to a document signature. <P>SOLUTION: A scanner part of the image forming apparatus 100 scans the original (paper), makes the original electronized data, attaches an acknowledger's approval and signature and calculates a hash value from the electronized data. The hash value is transmitted to a TSA 200, and an issued time stamp is received. The time stamp is attached to the electronized data, the electronized data with the time stamp attached is stored in a database, and results such as the signature and the time stamp information are transmitted to the image forming apparatus. The information on the results are printed on the paper document. At that time, a mark is printed on the paper document being a scanning source. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that performs digital signature original management.

In recent years, with the rapid development of IT technology and the progress of networking, there has been a request that various documents that are required to be stored should be matched to the actual situation. Therefore, the “e-document law” enforced in 2005 was amended as follows.
In other words, documents and forms such as financial documents and tax documents that are required to be preserved by the private sector by law are those that are not permitted to be stored electronically, in light of recent advances in information technology.・ As a general rule, to ensure that documents and forms can be stored electronically while ensuring the authenticity and visibility according to the contents and personality of the forms, by establishing a unified law, etc. It was said. This unified law is the “e-document law”. Currently, governmental agencies are studying specific requirements for electronic preservation, the scope, etc.
By the way, what is required in an electronic network society is to operate “when, who, what” as data that cannot be tampered with. “Who / what” can be resolved using electronic signatures, etc. However, as long as the watch referenced when making an electronic signature is an individual's PC, it is very difficult to prove when. It is difficult to.
One of the solutions is a technique called digital time stamp. What can be done with this digital time stamp technology is "existence proof" and "integrity proof". Here, the existence proof is to prove to a third party that the data existed at the time indicated by the time stamp, and the integrity proof is the data after the time when the time stamp is given. Is to prove to a third party that the tamper has not been tampered with.
Examples of such a computerized document management system include the following techniques.
JP 2002-230202 A JP2003-157251

By the way, if a document that was originally managed as an original paper document is managed as electronic data due to the above-mentioned revision of the law, both the original paper document and the electronic data may remain managed as the original document. . If this happens, double management of the original document becomes wasteful and the uniqueness of the original document may be impaired.
If the original is left scanned by the apparatus, it will not be possible to determine whether the paper document has been scanned and digitized later by simply looking at the paper document.
Furthermore, if the original after scanning is unconditionally marked, it will be marked as electronic data after it has not been approved by the approver after transmission or even if the scan data has failed to be transmitted. .
In addition, of course, signature information such as the approver and time cannot be printed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, a first object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus that can determine whether or not a paper document has been electronically transferred by printing a mark on a scanned and signed paper document (original). It is.
A second object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus capable of marking signature information (“when, who, what”) on a paper document before being digitized.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, reading means for reading an original image of an original document, transmitting means for transmitting image data read by the reading means to a signature machine or a time stamp server, and image data transmitted by the transmitting means In contrast, receiving means for receiving image data signed by the signature machine or time stamped by a time stamp server, storage means for storing the image data received by the receiving means, and the original document in the original The first object is achieved by providing information adding means for adding a mark indicating that it has been digitized.
According to a second aspect of the invention, in the first aspect of the invention, the information adding unit prints a management number when the original document is digitized to achieve the second object.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the second object is achieved by printing signature information when the original document is digitized by the information adding means.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the first, second, or third aspect of the present invention, a batch output unit that batch outputs a management number and signature information of signed document data is provided. Achieve the purpose of 2.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, it is possible to indicate that the paper document has already been digitized by attaching a predetermined mark to the original, and it is possible to avoid waste of double management.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, it is possible to link the paper document and the digitized data by adding the management number at the time of scanning to the original.
In the invention described in claim 3, by adding signature information (approver, time stamp information) at the time of scanning to the original, the person who approved the digitization only by looking at the paper document, the time of validity of the certificate It becomes possible to confirm.
According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, it is possible to easily manage a paper document by collectively outputting a signature result report after the original scan.

Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIGS.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an image forming apparatus 100 according to the present embodiment, and FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an overall processing procedure in scanner original management.
As shown in FIG. 1, the image forming apparatus 100 includes a FAX unit 10, a network interface (I / F) unit 12, a controller unit 14, a storage unit 16, an engine unit 18, and a scanner unit 20.

Next, a signature authentication processing procedure performed using this image forming apparatus will be described with reference to FIG.
First, the original (paper) is scanned and converted into electronic data by the scanner unit 20 of the image forming apparatus 100 (step 1). Next, the approval and signature of the approver are added (step 2), and a hash value is calculated from the electronic data (step 3). Then, the hash value is transmitted to the time stamp authority (TSA) 200 (step 4), and the time stamp issued from the TSA 200 is received (step 5). A time stamp is added to the electronic data and stored in a database (step 6), and results such as a signature and time stamp information are transmitted to the image forming apparatus (step 7). Information is printed on a paper document (step 8).

First, the first embodiment will be described. In this embodiment, an engine unit 18 for performing printing and a network I / O for participating in a network are installed in a copier, printer, scanner, fax, or their MFP (hereinafter referred to as MFP) 100 that can be connected to a network. An F unit 12, a scanner unit 20 for scanning a paper document, a FAX unit 10 for transmitting data by FAX, a storage unit 16 for storing data, and a controller unit 14 for controlling devices are provided.
In addition, the controller unit 14 can acquire a time stamp and a signature from the outside, or can perform a signature by itself.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure of this embodiment.
In this embodiment, the image forming apparatus 100, the signature machine 150, and the time stamp server 210 of the time stamp authority 200 are used.
First, in the image forming apparatus 100, when reading is started (step 10; Y), paper data (original) is scanned by the scanner unit 20 (step 11). Then, the electronic data is transmitted to the signature machine (authorizer) 150 (step 12). The signature machine 150 receives the electronic data (step 20), the approver confirms the data contents (step 21), and if there is no problem (step 21; Y), the digital signature is performed (step 22). On the other hand, if the contents are incomplete (step 21; N), a determination NG (ERROR) is returned (step 27). When an error is received, the error is displayed on the panel of the image forming apparatus 100.

Next, a hash value of the electronic data is calculated (step 23), and a time stamp is requested from the time stamp server 210 based on the calculated hash value (step 24).
Then, the time stamp server 210 receives the hash value (step 30). Then, the time stamp server 210 returns the time stamp to the signature machine 150 (step 31).
Thereafter, the signature machine 150 receives the time stamp sent from the time stamp server 210 (step 25), and the signature machine 150 adds the time stamp distributed to the electronic data and stores the data (step 26). .

Then, the signature machine 150 transmits result information such as a signer name and a signature time to the image forming apparatus 100 (step 27). If the determination at step 21 is NG, the result NG is returned.
Upon receiving the result (step 13), the image forming apparatus 100 determines the reception result (step 14). When the time stamp is normally added (step 14; OK), the image forming apparatus 100 stores the result in the storage unit 16 of the image forming apparatus 100. The result is saved (step 15). If the result is NG (step 14; NG), an error is displayed on the panel of the image forming apparatus 100 and the reading process is performed again.
Thereafter, a mark is printed on the paper document to be scanned (step 16). An example of this printing is shown in FIG.

Next, a second embodiment will be described.
In this embodiment, instead of printing the mark in step 16 in the first embodiment, a management number when digitized as shown in FIG. 5 is printed.

Next, a third embodiment will be described.
In this embodiment, instead of printing the mark in step 16 in the first embodiment, signature information when digitized as shown in FIG. 6 is printed.

Subsequently, a fourth embodiment will be described.
In this embodiment, in the first embodiment, if there is a list print request in the result data after printing the mark (step 17; Y), the result list of the digitized data as shown in FIG. 7 is printed. To do.
The data used for the list may be created from the result data stored in the storage unit 16 of the image forming apparatus 100 in addition to the transmission data from the signature machine.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment. It is a sequence diagram explaining the process sequence of a present Example. It is the flowchart which showed the process sequence of this embodiment. It is the figure which showed the processing result by 1st Example. It is the figure which showed the processing result by 2nd Example. It is the figure which showed the processing result by 3rd Example. It is the figure which showed the result list | wrist of the digitization data which are the processing results by a 4th Example.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 FAX part 12 Network interface (I / F) part 14 Controller part 16 Memory | storage part 18 Engine part 20 Scanner part 100 Image forming apparatus 150 Signature machine 200 Time stamp authority 210 Time stamp server

Claims (4)

Reading means for reading the original image of the original document;
Transmitting means for transmitting the read image data to a signature machine or a time stamp server;
Receiving means for receiving the image data transmitted by the transmitting means, the image data to which the signature by the signature machine or the time stamp by the time stamp server is attached;
Storage means for storing image data received by the receiving means;
An image forming apparatus comprising: information adding means for adding a mark indicating that the original document has been digitized as an original. 2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information adding unit prints a management number when the original document is digitized. 2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information adding unit prints signature information when the original document is digitized. 4. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a batch output unit that batch outputs a management number of signature data and signature information.

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