JP2020182076A - Information processing device and transmission control method, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

To prevent transfer of personal information to the outside a region in an image forming apparatus having a function of transmitting data to the outside.SOLUTION: When transmitting electronic data externally, in response to an instruction to transmit data, it is determined whether a set destination includes destinations outside a specific region. When it is determined that a destination outside the region is included as a destination, a display displays a message indicating that destinations outside the region are included as destinations. When a destination outside the region is not included as a destination or a transmission instruction is entered for the message, data is transmitted to the specified destination.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

The present invention relates to, for example, an information processing apparatus capable of transmitting information, a transmission control method, and a program.

An MFP (Multifunction Peripheral) having a function of reading a paper manuscript, converting it into electronic data, and transmitting it to the outside by fax or e-mail is known. A work environment that utilizes the network environment has been established by converting manuscript images into electronic data and sharing them using these functions. On the other hand, in order to use the function of digitizing and transmitting data, it is also important to take measures against leakage of electronic data due to transmission to an erroneous destination or an unauthorized destination. For this purpose, an image forming apparatus has been proposed that determines whether or not the destination is a pre-registered domain when transmitting the read electronic data by e-mail, and permits transmission only when the destination is a registered domain. (Patent Document 1).

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2004-304292

In recent years, as the momentum for protecting personal information has increased, the creation of new rules after personal information has been promoted. Many of these personal information protection rules prohibit the transfer of personal information from within the region to which the rule is applied, as represented by the European GDPR.

In Patent Document 1, since the domain for which transmission is permitted is registered, if the user registers a domain outside the region, data can be transmitted outside the region, which may violate the rule prohibiting the transfer of personal information outside the region. There was a challenge. Since the MFP can transmit information by a plurality of media (that is, transmission methods) such as facsimile, file transfer, and e-mail, all of them cause the same problem with the media.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to draw attention to the possibility of information transfer to the outside of the region regardless of the type of media.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention has the following configuration. That is, according to the first aspect of the present invention, there is a determination means for determining whether or not a destination outside a specific area is included as a set destination in response to an instruction to transmit data.
When it is determined that a destination outside the region is included as the destination, the display means displays a message indicating that the destination outside the region is included as the destination, and a control means.
It has a transmission means for transmitting data to the specified destination when a destination outside the region is not included as the destination, or when a transmission instruction is input to the message. An information processing device characterized by this is provided.

According to the present invention, attention can be drawn to the possibility of transferring information outside the region regardless of the type of media.

This is an example of a block diagram showing the configuration of the image forming apparatus 100 in the first embodiment. Software configuration diagram of the image forming apparatus 100 according to the first embodiment The figure which shows the warning processing flow of the personal information transfer outside the area in Embodiment 1. The figure which shows the warning processing flow of the transfer of personal information outside the area in Embodiment 2. The figure which shows the warning screen in Embodiments 1 and 2. Diagram showing the destination information management table The figure which shows the destination edit screen in Embodiment 2.

Hereinafter, embodiments will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. The following embodiments do not limit the invention according to the claims. Although a plurality of features are described in the embodiment, not all of the plurality of features are essential to the invention, and the plurality of features may be arbitrarily combined. Further, in the attached drawings, the same or similar configurations are designated by the same reference numbers, and duplicate description is omitted.

[Embodiment 1]
Hereinafter, the first embodiment for carrying out the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
<Hardware configuration>
FIG. 1 is an example of a block diagram showing the configuration of the image forming apparatus 100. In this embodiment, attention is paid to a function of the image forming apparatus 100 as an information processing apparatus, particularly a data transmission function. In FIG. 1, the control unit 200 is a block that controls the entire image forming apparatus 100, and includes the following.

The CPU 210 reads the program (first program) for the control unit 200 stored in the Flash ROM 211 and the program stored in the program area 251 in the hard disk drive (HDD) 213 into the RAM 212 and executes the program.

Further, in addition to the above program, the FlashROM 211 also stores various data including destination information and the like indicating the area where the image forming apparatus 102 is shipped. The destination information is information on the country or region in which the image forming apparatus is used, and is usually a value written in advance in the FlashROM 211 at the factory at the time of shipment of the image forming apparatus.

The HDD 213 stores the print data received from the PC 225 via the network I / F 218. The program executed by the CPU 210 includes a print application program described later. Then, the print application program converts the print data stored in the HDD 213 into image data that can be printed by the printer unit 220. Image data that can be printed by the printer unit 220 is also stored in the HDD 213. Further, the program executed by the CPU 210 includes a scanning application program. By this scanning application program, the image data is read by the scanner unit 221 (image scanner), and the read image data is transferred to the HDD 213.

The operation unit I / F 214 is an I / F for transmitting an instruction input by the operator of the image forming apparatus 100 to the CPU 210 via the operation unit 219. Further, the operation unit I / F 214 receives an instruction for switching the content displayed on the operation unit 219 from the CPU 210 and transmits the instruction to the operation unit 219.

The printer I / F 215 is an I / F for connecting the control unit 200 and the printer unit 220. Here, the printer unit 220 prints on the sheet based on the image data transferred from the HDD 213 via the printer I / F 215. The printer unit 220 (printing means) has a CPU 220a and a Flash ROM 220b. The CPU 220a causes the printer unit 220 to execute various operations associated with the print process by executing the program (second program) stored in the FlashROM 220b.

The scanner I / F 216 is an I / F for connecting the control unit 200 and the scanner unit 221. Here, the scanner unit 221 (input means for inputting image data) reads the image on the document as image data using a line sensor composed of a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) or the like. Then, the scanner unit 220 transfers the read image data to the HDD 213 via the scanner I / F 216. The image data transferred to and stored in the HDD 213 can be printed by the print unit 220 described above, and the image data read by the scanner unit 221 is printed by the print unit 220 to perform a copy process. It will be possible. Further, the stored image data can be transmitted by facsimile, can be transmitted as an attachment file of an e-mail, and can be transmitted according to a file transfer protocol.

The USB-Host I / F 217 is an I / F for connecting the control unit 200 and the external USB device 223. Here, examples of the external USB device 223 include a USB memory and a USB keyboard. In some cases, the program is stored in the USB memory, downloaded, and placed in the file storage area of FlashROM211.

The network I / F218 connects the control unit 200 to the LAN 300 and communicates with the PC 225 and the server device 224 on the LAN 300. The SRAM 227 is used to store the set value of the image forming apparatus 100 required for executing the first program. This network is further connected to an external Internet 250, and electronic data such as e-mail transmission and file transfer are performed via the Internet 250.

The fax I / F 230 connects the fax unit 231 to the telephone line 232 and performs communication for fax transmission of electronic data.

<Software configuration>
Next, the software configuration in this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a software configuration of the image forming apparatus 100. Each software may be, for example, a program stored in HDD 213, flash ROM 211, or the like, or may be encoded in ASIC or the like. The software of FIG. 2 may also be run under resource management by an operating system (not shown). The device driver 301 is a device driver for controlling various hardware. The application platform 302 is an application platform that manages the activation of applications and services running on the image forming apparatus 100. The application platform 302 provides the following APIs for applications and services.
-API for exchanging data between application and service
-API for using hardware functions from applications and services via device drivers
The application platform 302 can be configured to include an operating system such as Linux®, a JAVA® virtual machine, and an OSGi framework. JAVA (registered trademark) is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. The OSGi Framework is a JAVA®-based service platform defined by OSGi Alliance (a standards body).

The local application 303 is an application that displays a user interface on the operation unit 219 of the image forming apparatus 100. The local application 303 is an application that can be executed standalone by the image forming apparatus 100, and is composed of a copy application that provides a copy function, a scan application that provides a scan function, and the like.

The remote application 304 provides a user interface described in HTML for a Web browser operating on the PC 225. That is, it operates on the back end of the Web server and provides services to the outside via HTTP. The remote application 304 is composed of a direct print application that provides a print function of a PDF format document, an audit log management application that provides an audit log setting function, and the like. On the contrary, the remote application 304 may include an application for making the service provided by the server device 224 available to the image forming device 100.

● Extraterritorial relocation warning processing Next, the extraterritorial relocation warning processing of specific information (for example, personal information) in the image forming apparatus 100 from a specific area will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The procedure of the transmission control method of FIG. 3 is, for example, a part of the local application 303 and is executed by the CPU 210. In the present embodiment, the destination of the image forming apparatus 100 is set to Europe, and the case where data is transferred outside Europe is subject to warning processing. The term "Europe" as used herein may be the European Union (EU). That is, in this example, the inside of the region is the inside of the EU, and the outside of the region is the outside of the EU. Of course, the specific region is not limited to Europe, but can be applied to other regions (including countries).

In the operation unit 219, for example, the user selects a communication medium (or transmission method) such as facsimile, e-mail, or file transfer, and selects image data, text data, or the like as data to be transmitted. Subsequently, the procedure of FIG. 3 is started. The necessary selections and settings may be made up to S101 described later, and the order is not limited to that described here.

First, in S100, when the user inputs an e-mail address in the case of e-mail transmission and a fax number of the destination in the case of fax transmission, the fax number of the destination input as the destination is set. Next, in S101, the transmission process to the destination set earlier is started. Subsequently, in S102, the destination information of the image forming apparatus 100 is acquired from the Flash ROM 211. In the present embodiment, the value corresponding to Europe is acquired here.

Next, the transmission method is determined in S103. If the transmission method specified here is a facsimile, the process proceeds to S104, and it is determined whether the transmission destination includes a destination outside the specific area. Specifically, for example, in S104, it is determined based on the destination information management table 600 (see FIG. 6) whether or not the destination country code is included in the country code of the destination information. The destination information management table 600 is a table in which a country name, a fax country code, and a country level domain of e-mail are associated with each destination information. In S104, for example, when the destination is Europe and the destination country code is 44 (United Kingdom), it is determined as Yes because the destination is included in Europe as shown in FIG. 6, and the process proceeds to S107 for transmission. Execute the process.

On the other hand, for example, when the destination is Europe and the destination country code is 1 (USA), as shown in FIG. 6, the destination is not included in Europe, so it is determined as No, and the process proceeds to S105. In S105, the fax transmission warning screen 500 is displayed on the operation unit 219 because there is a risk of personal information being transferred outside the region (see FIG. 5). On the fax transmission warning screen 500, it is confirmed that the transmission is from the destination country code to outside Europe, but since it is unknown whether the transmission data contains personal information, there is no problem with the transmission content. Display a word (message) prompting confirmation. Subsequently, in S106, the fax transmission warning screen 500 waits until the button is touched (hereinafter, also referred to as pressing), and if it is pressed, it is determined whether or not the OK button 501 is pressed. If the OK button 501 is pressed here, it is determined that the transmission instruction has been given, the process proceeds to S107, and the transmission process is executed. On the other hand, when the cancel button 502 is pressed, it is determined that the transmission cancellation instruction has been given, the process proceeds to S108, and the transmission process is canceled.

If it is determined in S103 that the mail is transmitted, the process proceeds to S109, and it is determined based on the destination information management table 600 whether the destination domain is included in the country level domain of the destination information. In S109, for example, if the destination is Europe and the destination domain is uk (United Kingdom), it is determined as Yes, the process proceeds to S112, and the transmission process is executed. On the other hand, for example, if the destination is Europe and the destination domain is us (USA), it is determined as No and the process proceeds to S110. In S110, the mail transmission warning screen 501 is displayed because there is a risk of personal information being transferred outside the region (see FIG. 5). On the mail transmission warning screen 501, it is known that the destination domain does not include the European country level domain, but since it cannot be determined that the transmission is outside Europe, there is a risk of relocation outside the region and the content of the transmission. Display a wording that prompts you to confirm that there is no problem with. Subsequently, S111 waits until the button on the mail transmission warning screen 501 is touched (hereinafter, also referred to as pressing), and if it is pressed, it is determined whether or not the OK button 511 is pressed. If the OK button 511 is pressed here, the process proceeds to S112 and the transmission process is executed. On the other hand, when the cancel button 512 is pressed, the process proceeds to S113 and the transmission process is stopped.

If the transmission method uses an IP (Internet Protocol) network such as file transfer, the domain information of the destination is used in the same way as for e-mail to determine whether the destination is within the area corresponding to the destination information. Can be judged. In addition, although a parameter called a destination, which is not normally changed, is used as a specific area, a specific area may be set.

According to this embodiment, the domain information of the destination country code is used for fax transmission, and the domain information of the destination address is used for mail transmission, and whether the fax country code or country level domain of each country corresponding to the destination information is included. By determining whether or not it is possible, a warning can be issued when there is a risk of personal information being transferred outside the region. Even with an image forming apparatus capable of selecting a transmission method to be used from a plurality of transmission methods in this way, it is possible to appropriately determine whether or not the transmission destination of information is outside the specific area. Then, the user's attention can be drawn according to the determination result. As a result, it is possible to prevent specific information such as personal information from leaking out of a specific area.

[Embodiment 2]
Next, the out-of-region transfer warning processing of personal information in the second embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. FIG. 4 is a procedure executed in the present embodiment instead of FIG. 3 of the first embodiment. S100 to S109 and S112 to S113 in FIG. 3 are the same steps as S200 to S209 and S212 to S213 in FIG. 4, respectively. In FIG. 4, steps S110 and S111 of FIG. 3 are replaced with steps S210 and S211, respectively, and steps S214 to S216 are added. In particular, the difference will be described below.

Also in this embodiment, the destination of the image forming apparatus 100 is set to Europe, and the case where data is transferred outside Europe is subject to warning processing. In the first embodiment, the mail transmission warning screen 501 has only the OK button 511 or the cancel button 512, and it is possible to select either to transmit as it is or to cancel all of them. On the other hand, in the second embodiment, the mail transmission warning screen 520 (see FIG. 5) is displayed in S210. The mail transmission warning screen 520 is the one to which the destination edit button 522 is added. In S211 when the button is pressed, it is determined which button on the mail transmission warning screen 520 is pressed. When the OK button 521 or the cancel button 523 is pressed, the transmission process is executed or canceled in the same manner as in the first embodiment. When the destination edit button 522 is pressed, the process proceeds to S214 and the destination edit screen 700 (see FIG. 7) is displayed. On the destination edit screen 700, among the e-mail addresses set as the destinations, the addresses that do not include the country level domain corresponding to the destination information are listed. The user can select the address to be deleted from the displayed addresses with the check box. Next, in S215, if the button is pressed, it is determined whether the OK button 701 of the destination edit screen 700 is pressed. If the OK button 701 is pressed here, the destination selected in S216 is deleted from the destination of the e-mail to be sent, and then the process proceeds to S203. On the other hand, if the OK button 701 is not pressed, the process proceeds to S203 without deleting the destination. Subsequent operations are the same as in the first embodiment. The destination may include cc (carbon copy) or bcc (blind carbon copy), which is the destination to which the copy is transmitted.

According to the embodiment of the present embodiment, in addition to the same effect as that of the first embodiment, when there is a risk of personal information being transferred outside the region when sending an e-mail, the address is deleted by displaying the destination edit screen. It is possible to send to an appropriate destination.

For facsimile transmission, the user interface including the option of resetting the destination may be displayed in S205. In that case, if resetting is selected, the telephone number of the destination can be re-entered, or the desired destination can be deleted from the plurality of destinations of the broadcast transmission before transmission.

[Other Embodiments]
The present invention supplies a program that realizes one or more functions of the above-described embodiment to a system or device via a network or storage medium, and one or more processors in the computer of the system or device reads and executes the program. It can also be realized by the processing to be performed. It can also be realized by a circuit (for example, ASIC) that realizes one or more functions.

100 image forming device, 200 control unit, 210 CPU, 219 operation unit, 231 facsimile unit, 218 network interface

Claims (11)

A means for determining whether or not a destination outside a specific region is included as a set destination according to an instruction to transmit data, and a determination means.
When it is determined that a destination outside the region is included as the destination, the display means displays a message indicating that the destination outside the region is included as the destination, and a control means.
It has a transmission means for transmitting data to the specified destination when a destination outside the region is not included as the destination, or when a transmission instruction is input to the message. An information processing device characterized by this. The information processing device according to claim 1.
An information processing device characterized in that data transmission is canceled when a transmission cancellation instruction is input to the message. The information processing device according to claim 1 or 2.
An information processing device characterized in that when an edit of the destination is instructed for the message, an edit screen for deleting a destination outside the area from the destination is displayed. The information processing device according to any one of claims 1 to 3.
An information processing device comprising further means for setting the destination. The information processing device according to any one of claims 1 to 4.
The data is transmitted by facsimile.
The information processing device is characterized in that the determination means determines whether or not the destination includes a destination outside the area based on the destination number. The information processing device according to any one of claims 1 to 4.
The data is sent by email and
The information processing device is characterized in that the determination means determines whether or not the destination includes a destination outside the region based on the domain of the destination. The information processing device according to any one of claims 1 to 4.
The data is transmitted by communication using the Internet protocol.
The information processing device is characterized in that the determination means determines whether or not the destination includes a destination outside the region based on the domain of the destination. The information processing device according to any one of claims 1 to 7.
The information processing apparatus, characterized in that the specific area is an area registered in advance as a destination of the information processing apparatus. The information processing device according to any one of claims 1 to 8.
It also has an image scanner to read the image,
An information processing device characterized in that the transmitted data includes image data read by the image scanner. A program for operating a computer as the information processing device according to any one of claims 1 to 9. In response to the instruction to send data, it is determined whether the set destination includes destinations outside the specific area.
When it is determined that the destination outside the region is included as the destination, the display means displays a message indicating that the destination outside the region is included as the destination.
When a destination outside the region is not included as the destination, or when a transmission instruction is input to the message, the data is transmitted to the specified destination. Transmission control method.

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