You hit “print” from your phone and head to the shared printer down the hall. But by the time you get there, your document is already sitting in the output tray, face up, in full view of anyone who walks by. Maybe it’s a contract. Maybe it’s a personal medical form. Maybe it’s a financial report with numbers that aren’t meant for the whole office.
This is one of the most overlooked privacy risks in any workplace. And it’s one of the easiest to solve.
The Shared Printer Problem
In most offices, coworking spaces, and shared environments, printing works like this: you send a document, it prints immediately, and you hope you get there before someone else picks it up or glances at it.
The data suggests this isn’t a minor concern. According to Quocirca’s Print Security Landscape 2025 study, 56% of organizations reported a print-related data breach in 2025. And the costs aren’t trivial; print-related data losses average over $830,000 for companies with standard print fleets, and climb past $1.2 million for those running mixed fleets from multiple vendors. Sensitive documents left sitting at printers are a contributing factor, alongside unpatched firmware and inconsistent access controls.
The fix doesn’t require overhauling your IT infrastructure. It starts with changing when your document actually prints.
What Is Secure Release Printing?
Secure release printing, sometimes called pull printing or pin printing, is a straightforward concept: instead of printing immediately when you tap “print” your document is held in a queue until you physically walk up to the printer and authenticate using a pin. Only then does the printer release your job.
This approach solves several problems at once. Confidential pages aren’t left unattended in output trays. Print jobs don’t get mixed up with a coworker’s documents. And if you change your mind or sent to the wrong printer? The job simply never prints, reducing paper waste in the process.
How Mopria Print Service Makes It Work Across Brands
Here’s where it gets practical. Secure release printing has traditionally been tied to specific printer brands or enterprise software platforms. If your office runs printers from multiple manufacturers, which 59% of organizations do, getting consistent security features across all of them has been a challenge.
The Mopria Print Service app for Android addresses this by providing a single, brand-agnostic print experience with built-in security features, including more advanced features for businesses and enterprises. With Mopria Print Service, you can:
Require a PIN before printing. Administrators can configure PIN-based release, so documents only print after the user enters a code at the printer. This ensures that the person who sent the job is the one collecting it.
Secure the connection between your device and the printer. Mopria Print Service supports advanced features like TLS encryption for print data in transit, helping protect the contents of your documents as they travel from your phone to the printer.
Authenticate at the printer. The app supports user authentication, meaning you can verify your identity before releasing a print job, an important layer in compliance-sensitive environments like healthcare, legal, and finance.
Work with 10,000+ Mopria certified printer models. Because Mopria is supported by the world’s leading printer manufacturers, including Canon, HP, Epson, Brother, Lexmark (now a subsidiary of Xerox), Ricoh, Kyocera, Konica Minolta, Xerox, and more, these security features work consistently regardless of which brand of printer you’re using.
Who Benefits From Mobile Release Printing?
This isn’t just an IT department concern. Mobile release printing is useful for anyone who prints in a shared environment:
Office workers and hybrid employees who print sensitive documents like HR forms, contracts, or internal reports to shared printers. Walking up to authenticate before the job prints means no one else sees what you’re printing.
Small business owners who share a printer with staff and want to keep documents like financial records or client information private without investing in complex print management software.
Students and educators who use shared printers in libraries, labs, or department offices where dozens of people may be printing at the same time.
Healthcare and legal professionals who handle protected information and need to meet compliance requirements around document confidentiality.
Coworking space users who share printing resources with people they don’t know make unattended documents an even bigger privacy concern.
A Simple Shift With a Real Security Impact
The research makes it clear: secure print release and pull printing are among the recommended measures for organizations looking to reduce data breaches and strengthen their print security posture, especially as we’re entering the age of AI powered threats. And the shift doesn’t have to be complicated.
With Mopria Print Service, the setup is minimal. Install the app on your Android phone or tablet, connect to a Mopria certified printer on your network, and take advantage of PIN printing and authentication features, all without needing separate apps for each printer brand.
Ready to print smarter — and more securely? Download Mopria Print Service for seamless, secure printing across printer brands from your Android phone or tablet. Learn more about Mopria’s solutions for business printing here.
