Patent ID: 8245290

Claim:
An information processing apparatus which permits the usage of a first user's access privilege by a second user, comprising: an authentication unit which accepts login information from the second user; a first determining unit which, upon successful authentication of the second user, determines whether a number of sheets of printing paper used by the second user on the information processing apparatus has reached a limit based on the login information; a scanning unit which scans a document from the second user into image data; an analyzing unit which extracts a two-dimensional code from the image data and identification information of the first user, who is different from the second user, from the two-dimensional code; a second determining unit which determines whether a number of sheets of printing paper used by the first user on the information processing apparatus has reached the limit based on the identification information; a printing unit which prints the image data; and an incrementing unit which, based on the printing of the image data, increments the number of sheets of printing paper used by the second user if the number of sheets of printing paper used by the second user has not reached the limit, and increments the number of sheets of printing paper used by the first user if the number of sheets of printing paper used by the second user has reached the limit but the number of sheets of print paper used by the first user has not reached the limit.