To provide an image forming apparatus capable of surely preventing unfair outputting from occurring without depending on a time zone.

The image forming apparatus is equipped with a receiving part 51a for receiving image data to which outputting restricting information indicating that outputting of the image data for forming an image is restricted is provided, an outputting restricting information determination part 52a for determining the degree of the restriction of the outputting restricting information provided to the image data received by this receiving part 51a, a time information feeding part 54 for feeding time information, an outputting restricting information promoting part 52b for promoting the degree of the restriction of the outputting restricting information determined by the outputting restricting information determination part 52a based on the time information fed from this time information feeding part 54, and an outputting propriety determining part 52c for determining the propriety of outputting the image data received by the receiving part 51a based on the result of promotion by this outputting restricting information promoting part 52b.

COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT