Image Reading Apparatus Authentication Data Injection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing image reading apparatuses face challenges in efficiently limiting the viewing of large volumes of image data, particularly when confidential information is involved, as manually setting viewing limitations for each data set is cumbersome and impractical.
Innovation Solution
An image reading apparatus with a storage system that associates user information with viewing limiting information, including an authentication unit for user authentication and an information adding unit that adds authentication request data to image data, preventing unauthorized access and enabling secure transmission over a network.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If manual viewing limitation settings are applied to each image data, then viewing security is improved, but user workload and time consumption increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary authentication and adds authentication request data to image data during the reading process, before any viewing occurs. This eliminates the need for manual setting of viewing limitations for each image, as the authentication mechanism is pre-established through user credentials stored in the storage unit.
Solution Approach 2:
The image reading apparatus automatically manages viewing limitations by itself through built-in authentication functionality. When a user reads image data, the system automatically checks authentication status and adds appropriate authentication request data, without requiring the user to manually configure viewing restrictions for each file.
2Reliability
If authentication request data is added to all image data, then unauthorized access is prevented, but data processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies authentication request data selectively based on local conditions - specifically, whether the current user is authenticated and whether the image data requires protection. The information adding unit adds authentication data only when necessary, rather than uniformly to all image data, thereby reducing unnecessary processing complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The authentication mechanism serves multiple functions: it identifies users, determines viewing permissions, and adds appropriate authentication request data to image data. This multi-functional approach consolidates what would otherwise require separate processing steps into a single integrated system.
Data Source
AI summary
An image reading apparatus includes: a document reading unit; a storage storing a user ID and viewing limiting information indicating whether or not viewing of image data is permitted or not, in association with each other for each user; a control unit activating the document reading unit when authentication based on the user ID is successful; and a limiting information adding unit for adding, to the image data, authentication requesting data indicating that authentication is necessary for viewing the image data, in accordance with the viewing limiting information associated with the authenticated user ID.