Just when you thought it was safe to take a photocopy… Canon has announced this week that there is a problem with some of its personal copiers.

The company plans to inspect up to 1.87 million machines all over the world due to a danger they may catch fire or generate smoke from overheating.

Canon said there have been a total of six cases since 1992 of smoke or fire due to faulty connections in the heating units. In the most recent incident, a copier caught fire in July in western Japan.

Coming just after the recall of computers with faulty batteries and battery packs, there is now a big question mark over the safety of Japanese electronic products, previously known for their high quality.

The models affected are PC6, PC7, PC8 and PC11, and Canon has said it will post warnings and further information on its websites (canon.com/canon.co.uk) from Thursday, September 14.

The company has also promised that people who have purchased any of the affected models can have their machines inspected free-of-charge. Faulty parts will be replaced and this whole exercise could cost up to 200 million yen, a Canon spokeswoman said.

But don’t imagine that the price tag is going to affect the company dramatically.

“The effect of a Y200 million cost is marginal for a company with Y700 billion pretax profit,” JP Morgan senior analyst Hisashi Moriyama said. Moriyama added that he expects no impact on Canon’s bottom-line or share price.