In this era of digitalized documents and cloud computing, you may be surprised if you find that fax machines are still widely used in the business world, especially in healthcare and law enforcement. But why is it?
1. Fax Machines Have Adapted to the Digital Environment
Fax machines don’t just fax, but they can be an instant printer and scanner as well. You learn about getting an online fax number with Google in a minute, and you can send email to a fax machine or receive it directly. For matters like tax filing and financial reports, the tradition of using fax machines often still persists. If you work with a third party to do the accounting, tax filing, or banking, having a fax machine in your office is usually a must.
2. Fax Machines Are Considered the Safest
Emails and computers are hackable, but not fax machines. The probability of faxed documents to be faked is minuscule. For instance, if you receive a contract right now, you can sign and send it back right away, and it will be considered authentic. Besides, fax machines do not store the data of any document you send with it, unlike emails or cloud sharing. In 2012, the big cloud platform DropBox experienced a security breach, and the private data (email address and passwords) of roughly 68 million users were compromised. Imagine if your company’s sensitive data were stored there, and the stats and reports were leaked to the public. That can surely be devastating to your company.
3. Fax Machines Are the Most Acceptable Means in Law Enforcement
Law enforcement does not only mean dealing with the police, but it also covers subjects like legal contracts, ownership certificates, tax documents, etc. Therefore, it won’t be surprising if you can find fax machines in big companies. They are used to communicate with lawyers and tax consultants. In fact, some insurance companies also still require the policyholders to send their civil documents via fax.
4. Working With Fax Machined Is Actually Faster
You may not agree with this, but this is the fact, especially in big companies where countless documents are distributed every day. The primary explanation is that digital documents require multiple validation procedures before they can be declared as authentic. With fax machines, all the sending and receiving are done in real-time. And this is why all medical institutions, accounting firms, lawyers, and tax consulting firms still hold to the tradition of using fax machines instead of transforming fully into a more digitalized system. In their context, fax machines are the safest and the fastest. …