IMAGE FORMING DEVICE HAVING FUNCTION OF PREVENTING UNAUTHORIZED USE OF DATA AND AUTHORIZATION METHOD THEREOF

摘要

An image forming apparatus having a data protection function and a data protecting method of the image forming apparatus are provided to generate a unique key value with respect to data stored in an HDD(Hard Disk Drive) of the image forming apparatus and give the authority to access the data to a user corresponding to the unique key value. An image forming apparatus includes an interface(210), an encoding and decoding processor(260), an HDD(270), and a controller(250). The interface receives user data from an information processor. The encoding and decoding processor encodes the user data by using a predetermined key value and decodes encoded data. The HDD stores the encoded data and the key value. The controller generates the key value by using user information on the data and provides the key value to the encoding and decoding processor.