HP printers have historically and recently received a lot of flak for invasive firmware updates that result in customers running out of ink with their printers. HP also encourages printer customers to sign up for HP+, a program that includes a free ink trial and non-removable firmware that allows HP to block the ink when it deems necessary.
Despite this, HP markets dozens of its printers with dynamic security and the optional HP+ feature as being on the EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) registry, suggesting that these printers are built with the environment in mind and, more specifically, Do not block third-party ink cartridges. Since Dynamic Security and HP+ printers do just that, the International Imaging Technology Council (IITC) wants the General Electronics Council (GEC), which is responsible for the EPEAT registry, to pull at least 101 HP printer models from the EPEAT registry, what HP has “made a mockery of.”
Before we address the IITC complaint sent to GEC Senior Manager Katherine Larocque on May 22, we should note the obvious interests of the IITC in this. Founded in 2000, the not-for-profit trade association represents “toner and inkjet cartridge remanufacturers, component suppliers and cartridge collectors in North America.” Thus, the members can lose a lot of money through tactics such as Dynamic Security. The IITC already filed a complaint with the GEC about HP in 2019 for firmware blocking non-HP ink, but there didn’t seem to be any noticeable results.
The group is biased on this subject, but the complaint still reflects many of the issues and concerns that consumers and class action lawsuits have laid out regarding HP printers’ exclusive stance on ink. The full complaint can be found here.
“Killer Firmware Updates”
For a printer to create the EPEAT registry, it must meet the EPEAT Imaging Equipment Category Criteria, which is based on the 1680.2-2012 IEEE Standard for Environmental Assessment of Imaging Equipment (pdf). The IITC is suspended from section 4.9.2.1, which requires registered products not to “prevent the use of non-manufacturer cartridges and non-manufacturer containers” and that sellers provide documentation demonstrating that the device is not “designed to permit the use of a cartridge that is not from the manufacturer or a container that is not from the manufacturer.”
Well, as the IITC and consumers who found their inked brick mid-print will tell you, that’s very similar to what HP is doing with its Dynamic Security printers.
Delving deeper, the IITC’s complaint alleges that “in the past 8 weeks alone, HP has released 4 great firmware updates targeting dozens of EPEAT-registered inkjet printers.”
“At least one of these recent updates specifically targeted a single manufacturer of remanufactured cartridges, without impacting third-party non-remanufactured cartridges that use functionally identical non-HP chips,” the complaint reads.
The trade group also claimed that at least 26 “killer firmware updates” have occurred on EPEAT-registered HP laser printers since October 2020.
The complaint alleges that the error message users are seeing: “The indicated cartridges have been blocked by the printer firmware because they contain non-HP chips. This printer is intended to work only with new or remanufactured cartridges containing a new or remanufactured HP chip. Please replace the indicated cartridges to continue printing”—contrary to EPEAT requirements, yet HP markets dozens of Dynamic Security printers with EPEAT ecolabels.
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The IITC’s complaint points to numerous places where HP is claiming EPEAT registration, while apparently contradicting the terms of the registry.
For example, it shared an EPEAT documentation (PDF) that stated, “HP printers are not designed to prevent the use of non-manufacturer cartridges and non-manufacturer containers.” Meanwhile, HP’s Dynamic Security website says, “Dynamic Security equipped printers are only work with cartridges with new or remanufactured HP chips or electronic circuits. The printers use the dynamic security measures to block cartridges with non-HP chips or modified or non-HP chips. HP electronic circuits.”
“Perhaps HP’s stance is that 4.9.2.1 allows blocking any non-manufacturer cartridge that does not use an HP chip. Regardless of whether HP cites ‘security vulnerabilities’ or some other excuse, 4.9.2.1 does not allow that leeway . The language of 4.9.2.1 is unambiguous and unqualified,” the IITC’s complaint said.
Dynamic Security printers receive periodic firmware updates that HP claims can “improve, enhance, or expand the printer’s functionality and features, protect against security threats, and serve other purposes,” but also “block cartridges with a non-HP chip or modified or non-HP circuitry from working in the printer, including cartridges that work today.” Sometimes those cartridges are more than 90 percent full, according to the IITC, which doesn’t see where the “security” in “Dynamic Security” comes from:
The truth is that Dynamic Security has nothing to do with security at all, but everything to do with frustrating consumers who choose non-HP cartridges in an effort to improve sales of Original HP cartridges.
