Patent ID: 8843485

Claim:
An image-processing apparatus comprising: a setting unit to set a rate of object matching on the basis of a user's instruction using a setting screen; a determination unit to determine whether or not print data represents a confidential document; a first object data extraction unit to extract object data from the print data if the print data is determined by the determination unit to represent a confidential document; an object data storage unit to store the object data extracted from the print data by said first object data extraction unit; a second object data extraction unit to extract object data from a scanned image that is obtained by scanning a document, the extracted object data extracted from the scanned image including a character region and an image region; a calculation unit to determine whether the object data extracted from the scanned image by said second object data extraction unit matches the object data stored in said object data storage unit, and to calculate a matching rate based on the number of object data determined to match each other and the total number of object data extracted by said second object data extraction unit; a matching rate determination unit to determine whether or not the matching rate calculated by said calculation unit is higher than the rate of object matching set by said setting unit; and a process restriction unit to restrict a process on the scanned image, if the matching rate is determined by said matching rate determination unit to be higher than the rate of object matching.