Securing Faxed Data

Sending and receiving documents via fax is still a critical method of data transmission for many sectors including health care and the law. Here’s how to ensure those faxes are kept private and confidential.

By Steve Adams

The Digital Age has been a boon to business. The ability to produce documents digitally, rather than on paper, has made it easier to create, perfect, store and transmit documents. The downside to these benefits is the presence of digital documents loaded with confidential information firing around the Internet has drawn identity thieves and hackers like ants to a picnic.

While the technical know-how to pull a document out of cyberspace might be beyond the capabilities of the average Internet user, it is often child’s play for those want to steal private information for their own purposes. If corporate giants can’t guarantee security, what chance does the ordinary small business have?

Email is just not secure enough to protect patient confidentiality, as a result, faxing remains prominent in industries–such as healthcare, real estate, mortgage banking, insurance and the law—that need to transmit large amounts of confidential information quickly. Faxes use a different type of technology to break documents into electronic bits during transmission, so anyone trying to intercept a fax would end up with nothing more than a lot of incomprehensible gobbledygook.

Even within the faxing world, however, there are different degrees of security and privacy.

Privacy issues with fax machines

Access: One of the biggest security issues with fax machines is that since they are expensive to own and operate relative to their day-to-day value, most are shared between all the workers in a department or an entire company. As a result, they sit in common areas where they can be easily accessed. Unfortunately, that also means documents that come in on the fax machine sit exposed, available for anyone to view.

Sorting: Then there are the issues with sorting and distributing. If one person delivers faxes, he/she will have to at least get a quick look at what’s there in order to decide where it goes. This means people other than the intended recipient can view the potentially private information. And there’s always the possibility that a fax can be delivered to the wrong person, further exposing confidential information. If that person decides to do something bad with it, the results can be disastrous.

Sending: Privacy is also a concern at the sending end. If you walk away while sending a 10-page fax, that information is going to sit out in the open until you retrieve it.

So if you can’t send emails, and fax machines aren’t secure enough, how exactly are you supposed to transmit documents quickly to the people who do need to get them?

Internet fax services

An Internet fax service combines the best of both email and faxing while eliminating the privacy risks of both. It uses the same technology as fax machines to transmit the documents electronically, making them safe in cyberspace. But rather than going to or from a machine in a common area, an Internet fax service sends and receives documents through an email account or a secure online server, which means it goes directly to or from a PC, laptop or smart phone—an Internet connection is all that’s required.

As an added benefit, since you’re not tied to a particular machine in a particular location, you can send and receive secure faxes wherever you happen to be. Your fax number and account go with you, saving you the trouble of having to go back to the office when you’re out or fax from a public location.

Privacy is a huge concern these days. And whether it’s government-mandated or for efficiency, faxing can help keep confidential documents away from prying eyes.

Steve Adams is the vice-president of marketing for Protus, a provider of communications tools for small-to-medium-businesses and enterprise organizations.