Utility of Fax over Email when both are available

Question

Are there any benefits left for sending documents via Fax as opposed to email? (assuming that both the sender and receiver have access to either technology). For example, are there cases where Fax is more secure or convenient than Email?

Answer 1

A really big reason are signatures and laws. For example in some countries you can just fax a signature while using digital signatures would require you to get an official digital signature (usually stored on a smart card, if it exists in the first place, and sometimes having less "validity" than a handwritten signature), then get a smart card reader, install middleware which may or may not work with the program you wish to use to sign the document, and then the receiver may also need to have program which will work with the digital signature to confirm it, and so on for the whole chain.

It's not uncommon for some businesses to need to submit signed documents to dozens of different government regulatory offices, agencies, banks and so on and in all of them everyone will have to be trained and equipped to use the digital signature. Such preparations may be made on a level of single country, but what happens if you get a signed e-mail from another country (when the signatures are even more important because the other person can't just come over and sign a document himself and mail takes time and money).

Also the whole process of sending authenticated mail is a bit complicated. For a simple office clerk, it's often easier to just use fax, and then focus on doing the job he's supposed to do.

So basically the main reason is inertia of the society. Everyone needs to get used to e-mails, and almost everyone is already used to using a fax, so transition isn't easy.

Another problem is how difficult it is to access documents. Using a fax, you can easily send handwritten notes, or take a document and underline it by hand and so on. On computer such "simple" things are a bit more complicated. For example, if you have a document on the computer, you'd need to print it, do editing by hand and then scan it, or edit it on the computer, and people often aren't as used to interfacing with computers as they used to interfacing with a pencil. Also, mice are difficult to use for drawing and graphical tablets aren't often a part of standard office computer.

Answer 2

Faxing official documents with signatures and stuff like that just makes it easier for people at the receiving end. They don't have to go through printing tons of papers, instead the fax will take care of it AND will display your fax number at the top (for easy organization).

I don't think that fax has any significant advantage over email other than this. In the foreseeable future, you might able to have a type of 'email machine' where companies would have an email server with a special email for each department. Every email received would go through filters to remove any kind of spam and only accept legitimate emails. The machine would then catch these emails, send them to the 'email machines' of the department in question and it would be automatically printed off.

I don't know if something like this exists, but it's kinda cool :)

Answer 3

Faxing is preferred to emailing when legal or critical documents are to be sent because as an earlier responses indicated when you send a fax you are guaranteed that it has arrived. When you send an email there is no guarantee that it has arrived - not getting a bounce back message is not a guarantee of arrival.

A fax can only be sent if there is a fax machine ready and waiting to receive it. If you get notification that a fax has been sent you know that the fax number at the other end has received it.

With regard to if it has been picked up or read by a person that is irrelevant in many cases. If you are sending a legal document you need to know that it has been received. It is up to the recipient to read it and make arrangements to pick it up. Its the same as if you sent registered mail to the address. You have proof of delivery and that is all you need. Your job is done and it is up to the recipient to open and read that mail. If they don’t that is entirely their responsibility. So a fax is safer if you want to have proof of receipt of a document. That is why companies in the financial sector and legal sector rely so heavily on fax for remote communication of documents especially with the laws of traceability - no one can argue that you never sent a fax but they could argue that they never received an email.

Answer 4

When you send a fax you know if the other person has received it , where as there are no foolproof methods of confirming that the other party has received and read your mail (as far as i know ) .
Also if you are not sure that the attachment can be opened at the other end you can use fax.

So Acknowledgement of document and guaranteed readability are two situations where you might consider sending an fax instead of email .

Answer 5

Summary from my notes / other sources:

I got tired of getting a document, printing it out, signing it, and scanning it back in.

So, what I did was to scan in my signature and initials. Then when I get a document, all I have to do is "Add an Image" to put my signature and initials in the right place.

Now, here's the problem - If I send it on to someone, it looks like they can remove my signature (image).

Even if I set the Properties to "Locked," it looks like the next person can un-check the Lock box and delete it.

Is there any way of making this permanent, so that no one (or at least no one but me) can remove or modify it?

---

The image added by Foxit Reader is located at the annotation layer.

Organize / Flatten Page . . . to make the signature at the document layer, and it should not be able to be deleted by others.

Then set the "Modify documents" in document restrictions to "Not Allowed."

---

Then, add a password to the PDF, and phone that in to the recipient.

Or, you might create 1,000 20-digit passwords in a spreadsheet, numbered 1 to 1,000. Password protect that, e-mail it to the recipient, and phone him the password. Then you can e-mail a password protected PDF through e-mail, and include in the e-mail that it's password number 0850, or something.

You won't have to worry about the PDF sitting on some server forever, and

The only person who will see it is the person to whom you gave the password.

---

So, IMO, PDF can be done more securely than a fax.

Answer 6

Fax is typically sent over telephone lines and the data is uninterrupted and not subject to being intercepted at any number of points over the internet like an email message is. Also fax cannot easily or mistakenly be forwarded to an unintended party like a confidential email can.

Answer 7

I was asked by an insurance company to fax or email banking information. I opted for old school fax simply because chances of being intercepted by a third party is far less. But mostly because the email along with my banking info would remain on my email server, and on the insurance company's server, legally for a long time and perhaps forever. Given the recent email hacks, it is not worth the risk.