Why do companies and the government still use fax machines in 2020?
In: Technology
The biggest reason is legal.
A faxed copy of a signature or original form is considered good to go and legit just like you had a real copy and signature. An emailed copy isn’t always considered this. Many legal documents even specifically call out that faxed or original copy is fine, but disallow email.
The other reason is another legal one– if you’re required to give another person a document (again like one above) a fax will show up 100% of the time and be confirmed and received by the other side. An email may get sent to a dead email box, or one thats not monitored or anything. Faxes are basically guaranteed to be delivered and received.
However– even as this above is all true, many new legal documents and organizations are finding ways to use email like a fax instead. Its going slower than you’d think.
tl;dr: Its basically becauce a fax copy is guaranteed to be received and its treated like its an original copy, an email is too unreliable in a legal sense.
Because email cannot be secured and laws state that the govt and business are not permitted to be careless with peoples’ information. In order to intercept a fax or a letter, you must be right there. It can’t be done remotely or on a large scale.
Fax communications are more secure but not 100% immune to hacking. Additionally in some states a fax document is a legal reproduction of the original. Lastly some companies/industries have just not advanced technically.
Supposedly it’s one of the safest way of communication, and unlike let’s say emails that can be hacked, fax machines are more secure. ( don’t know how much of that is true nowadays though)
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