When it comes to most essential equipment for any office around the world, fax machines are among the top requirements. In today’s world, fax machines have lost their value due to the introduction of online fax machines. Having said that, many businesses prefer to keep fax machines in their office. With its pros and cons, there are serious issues when it comes to privacy of personal and classified information.
The major issue with fax machines is that the fax can be sent to another end at any moment without receiving any notifications on fax arrival. This means that any person, with bad intentions, can have your personal information and could use it for an unethical purpose. The majority of documents sent by fax are those which are private in nature and usually have signatures on them. Such documents include contracts, medical documents, and loan documents.
In such cases one has two option: Either keep the private fax machine in locked rooms or use SSL- encrypted internet fax.
But when it comes to biggest risks associated with the fax machine, most of them are literally inside the equipment. Like in the case of thermal transfer fax machines, which are often used by small businesses, it contains rolls of film or ink ribbon which store almost everything you have ever faxed. In another type of machines, there is an in-built feature to retain document memories.
In the case of digital copiers, it has hard drives- just like the ones in our PCs, which stores images of each and every document copied, scanned or emailed via them.
Whether it is your Social Security number, health records, bank information, and personal details, all are available on one long thread that you may never know existed. We all try to protect our personal information and identity from being stolen online.
The most effective way to safeguard your identity and reduce any potential risk is to inspect thoroughly every communication device you have before tossing it out. Get rid of any data you have on your device before getting rid of it. In America, there are many warehouses which store these machines, out of which most of them are sent to other countries. This fact is a great reason enough to destroy your used films and erase your hard drives.
Fax machines are still used by millions of user worldwide as they are a great choice for small businesses and homes. Due to the risk associated with fax machines, online fax services are often picked up. The reason behind it is features like notification whenever any fax is sent or received, password protection and SSL encryption.