Printers can leave two forms of identifying marks on their output: earmarks, which consist of imperfections that result from unique signs of wear in the mechanism itself, and identifying marks, which provide a digital fingerprint that points to a specific printer model and unit.

Can printers be traced?

When decoded, the yellow dots can indicate the make, model and serial number of the printer and, in some cases, the date and time. With this information, law enforcement can potentially track down the owner of the printer by following the serial number from the manufacturer to the reseller and then to the purchaser.

Do printers have fingerprints?

Most color laser printers and color copiers are designed to print invisible tracking codes across every single printed page of their output. ... This is a video tutorial on viewing your printer's secret dots (fingerprints). For the full tutorial on finding out your printer's fingerprint marks, go to Instructables.