Email is the most common — and modern — form of communication because it is fast, convenient, and can transport documents in many formats. Yet in industries like healthcare, legal and education, you still commonly see official documents and communication transmitted through fax rather than email. So why do these industries still use faxing?
Industries that still use faxing:
- Education (especially for bursar/financial aid)
- Healthcare (HIPAA requires faxing to protect personal patient information)
- Government
- Real estate (for official contracts)
- Finance
- Law
Security and safety are often brought up when comparing email versus fax. Emails are convenient enough for personal communication, but aren’t always the safest method for sending highly sensitive and legal documents.
But why is this? What’s risky about emailing that isn’t a risk with faxing? Why is fax more secure than email? How is online faxing any safer than email attachments?
In this article we’ll explain the risks of email communications compared to fax and why certain industries tend to prefer fax over email.
Advantages of Faxing
- Network security*
- Less risk of suspicious files and links
- Compliant with many official requirements
- Easy with digital fax service
Advantages of Email
- Quick
- Can transport more complex files in a variety of formats
- Convenient to access
*The key takeaway is: Phone lines can be intercepted, but generally they are considered to be safer and more secure than email accounts that are password protected. Online faxing is also considered to be secure; the level of security depends on the fax service provider’s level of encryption, as well as your own ISP’s (internet service provider) security practices.
Facsimile transmissions are secure between the Fax.live platform and your web browser (SSL).
The fax-to-fax connection may or may not be secure. Data is not encrypted going over phone lines, though it is viewed as being very difficult to hack. Additionally, and this is important: A fax sitting in the in-box tray of a physical fax machine is vulnerable to fall into the wrong hands, even with a confidential cover sheet.
Is Faxing Safer Than Email?
In a lot of ways, yes, but not in all the ways that you expect.
When you fax a document using a fax machine, you’re transmitting digital information through a phone line, which results in a document being “decoded” by a fax machine on the recipient’s end. This complex data that’s transported over a phone line is essentially just “computer speak” for communicating an image file. In fact, when you fax a document, it’s closer to an image than a document, such as one you would edit in a program like Microsoft Word.
You may see where we’re going with this. In an email, you can attach an image, a document, a ZIP file, an MP3 file, and anything else that can fit within the email’s size limit. Email attachments are vulnerable to potentially dangerous files like malware or viruses that infect a computer when they’re downloaded. Most email providers have safeguards built-in to scan for malicious files.
When you fax a document over the internet, it’s uploaded to a secure website as a PDF, and then the fax service provider transmits the fax to the recipient. Depending on the recipient’s technology, they may receive faxes via a dedicated fax machine, which involves printing the document, or they may receive it to their own Fax.live account. The advantage with faxing over the internet is that documents are protected through Fax.Live’s security, as well as your ISP’s security practices.
So, Does That Mean Faxes Are Always Safer?
No. While it’s much harder for hackers to access the phone lines that are used to transmit fax information, it’s not impossible. Most fax machines are connected to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), which is the worldwide network of connected telephones, which allows calls to be made.
Most fax machines aren’t connected to the internet, which means they operate entirely within the closed PSTN. Despite digital faxing services like Fax.Live being web-based, we still use physical landlines to transmit faxes. If a fax machine is connected to the internet, it is usually protected by the firewall that your office or home network has.
Faxes are also difficult to intercept while they are in transit because the data is encrypted while it’s in transit. This means that your important documents are scrambled and can only be “decoded” by the receiving fax machine. This makes it difficult for a middleman to intercept your important documents.
That said, once a fax is received and printed, the hard copy can fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, there is not much a sender can do about that.
Why Are Emails Riskier?
In a sentence, emails carry more risk due to their broader functionality.
It’s easy to send and receive emails with just about anything attached. This is great for sending files and documents over the web casually, but the problem with sending anything over the internet … is that you can send anything over the internet.
We don’t want to scare you from using email attachments! When you send an attachment to someone, unless you are a malicious person, your email should be safe. It’s quite rare that emails “pick up” viruses during transmission, but it can happen.That is why hospitals, law offices and financial institutions still rely on facsimile transmissions; they are quite often the targets of malicious people and hackers.
Overall, emails are a little more risky for transporting information and many institutions prefer faxing as a secure, if more restrictive, alternative. Digital fax services like Fax.Live bring faxes into the modern era without sacrificing security. You’ll still be able to transmit faxes securely in the same way you would with a fax machine but from the convenience of your computer.
Photo 1892256 | Feng Yu | Dreamstime