IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING PROGRAM, STORAGE MEDIUM, AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent the illegitimate leakage of information such as a confidential document or the like via each function provided to an image processing apparatus. SOLUTION: A dot pattern detector 210 detects a dot pattern embedded to a background image or a foreground image included in image data of an original image read by an image read means 201, a dot pattern discrimination means 211 compares the detected dot pattern with a dot pattern stored in a storage area and whose output is prohibited to discriminate the identity and restricts the reproduction of image data by each function provided to the apparatus when the means 211 discriminates the identity. Thus, illegitimate leakage of information such as the confidential document via each function provided to the apparatus can be prevented by restricting the reproduction of image data by each of functions (203, 214 to 217) provided to the apparatus in response to the discrimination of the identity with the dot pattern. COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI