The Prolonged Life of the Fax Machine

A poll of U.S. office workers has found that 85 percent of U.S. businesses rely on fax technology. This runs contrary to the widespread impression that faxing is dead.

The poll also revealed some security and privacy issues relating to faxing, with workers in general thinking that emailing is more secure than faxing. Just under half (49%) had read a fax sitting in a fax machine not intended for them.

One thousand and eight workers in organisations ranging from 10 to 500 employees were interviewed in the poll commissioned by GFI software.

Said Phil Bousfield, general manager of the Infrastructure Business Unit at GFI Software, “Faxing is a required form of transactional communication in a number of key industries for compliance reasons, but while paper faxing can be risky from a privacy perspective, many people aren’t aware that electronic faxing is actually superior to even email in terms of security.

“This is a technology that has quietly evolved to change with the times and serve the needs of various vertical markets, leapfrogging email in the process to become the most secure form of digital communication available. Whether most people realize it or not, faxing is here to stay – it’s just had a facelift.”