Patent ID: 8072627

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a job receiver that receives a job including a target data piece encrypted with a shared key and the shared key encrypted with a user's public key, which is transmitted by the user via a terminal connected to a network; a job storage that stores the received job; an encrypted shared key extractor that extracts from a plurality of target jobs including the received job stored in the job storage, encrypted shared keys included in the respective target jobs; an external recording medium connector that removably connects to an external recording medium holding the user's public key and a secret key and having the function for decrypting the encrypted shared key with the secret key; a shared key transmitter that transmits a plurality of encrypted shared keys which are obtained as a result of extracting the encrypted shared keys from the respective jobs by the shared key extractor, to the external recording medium connected to the external recording medium connector; a decrypted shared key obtainer that obtains from the external recording medium, the plurality of shared keys which are transmitted to the external recording medium by the shared key transmitter and decrypted with the secret key by the external recording medium; a target data decryption portion that decrypts the target data pieces with their matching decrypted shared keys, after completely obtaining the plurality of decrypted shared keys from the external recording medium; and a job executor that executes the jobs including the decrypted target data pieces.