Is faxing secure?
A fax travels over the phone network straight to one machine. For most people the practical risks are at the two ends: a mistyped number, a shared machine where anyone can pick up the pages, and online services that keep copies of what you sent. Here is how to deal with each.
- Check the fax number twice, and confirm it with the recipient or their official website if you can.
- Add a cover sheet with the recipient's name, and write Confidential in the subject, so the pages go to the right person.
- Leave Social Security and account numbers off the cover sheet; it is the page most likely to be seen by others.
- Find out what the fax service keeps, and for how long, before you upload anything.
- Keep the delivery result: it shows the number, the time and how many pages arrived.
What happens to your document here
It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, passed to our fax carrier to be sent, and deleted from our storage as soon as the fax finishes, delivered or not. An upload that is never paid for is deleted within about an hour. There is no account, and the status page only opens in the browser that sent the fax.
What the IRS says about online fax services
When the IRS invites you to fax a reply to a notice, it says you can use a fax machine or an online fax service, and asks you to understand the service's privacy and security policies first.
Is faxing HIPAA compliant?
HIPAA applies to how healthcare providers, insurers and their vendors handle health information, not to fax as such. A provider faxing patient records through an outside service usually needs a business associate agreement with it. PageFax doesn't offer one, so it is meant for people sending their own documents, such as their own records or forms.
Fax or email?
Use what the recipient asks for. Many agencies and medical offices still list a fax number for documents, and some say not to email personal information at all.