This guideline provides an overview of the basic principles and criteria for the procurement of printers and multifunctional devices by public administrations. It is the result of the working group on printers of the Bitkom expert committee for product-neutral tenders.
The aim of the guideline is to provide public contracting authorities at federal, state and local level with a reliable and comprehensible support so that they can formulate their tenders for the procurement of printers and multifunctional devices in a product-neutral manner, i.e. without using protected brand names and without naming a specific manufacturer, but taking into account current technical standards.
The security of printing systems depends strongly on their configuration. Therefore, when purchasing printers, attention should already be paid to existing security functions and these should be selected or configured according to the required security level. Not every printer is suitable for every security need. This guideline describes typical security risks encountered in practice and outlines measures to proactively counter these threats. After all, the security of printing systems and multifunctional devices is often neglected in companies. Yet a high security standard is mandatory in the context of its economic use. This is because printers are entrusted with confidential information, which often includes personal data whose confidentiality must be maintained.