Online Fax Security:
How Your Documents Stay Protected

Is Online Faxing Secure?

Yes. Modern online fax services use multiple layers of security to protect your documents during upload, processing, and transmission. The days of unencrypted internet connections are long gone — today's online fax services employ the same encryption standards used by banks and healthcare providers.

FaxItOnce specifically uses HTTPS (TLS 1.2/1.3) encryption for all data transmitted between your browser and our servers. This means your document is encrypted the moment you start uploading it and remains encrypted until it reaches our secure processing environment. Payment processing is handled entirely by Stripe, which holds PCI DSS Level 1 certification — the highest level of payment security available, the same certification used by the world's largest financial institutions.

Unlike email, which stores messages indefinitely on multiple servers, FaxItOnce does not retain your documents after transmission. Once your fax is delivered, your files are automatically deleted from our systems.

How Does FaxItOnce Protect Your Documents?

FaxItOnce applies security at every stage of the faxing process. Here is what happens to your document from upload to deletion:

Is Online Faxing More Secure Than Email?

The security difference between fax and email comes down to how data travels from sender to receiver and what legal protections apply.

When you send an email, your message passes through multiple servers before reaching the recipient. Your email provider's outgoing server, potentially several relay servers, and the recipient's incoming server all handle your message. At each point, the email can be intercepted, logged, or stored. Even with encryption between servers, your email content may be stored unencrypted on the sending and receiving servers.

Fax transmission works differently. The document travels point-to-point over phone lines — directly from the sending device to the receiving fax machine. There are no intermediate servers storing copies of your document. Intercepting a fax requires physical access to the phone line between sender and receiver, which is significantly more difficult than intercepting email traffic.

From a legal standpoint, fax transmissions are protected under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which provides federal legal protections for communications over phone lines. Email does not have equivalent federal protections, which is one reason regulated industries — healthcare, legal, and financial — prefer fax for sensitive document transmission.

How Are Payments Protected?

FaxItOnce processes all payments through Stripe, which holds PCI DSS Level 1 certification — the highest level of payment security certification in the industry. PCI DSS Level 1 is the same standard required of companies processing over 6 million card transactions per year, including major banks and payment processors.

When you pay for a fax on FaxItOnce, your credit card information goes directly to Stripe's servers. FaxItOnce never sees, handles, or stores your credit card number. This means even in the unlikely event of a security breach on our end, your payment information would not be at risk because it was never on our servers in the first place.

Is FaxItOnce HIPAA Compliant?

Fax as a transmission method has specific legal protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recognizes fax as an acceptable method for transmitting protected health information (PHI), provided reasonable safeguards are applied.

FaxItOnce applies multiple safeguards that align with HIPAA security principles: HTTPS encryption protects documents during upload, documents are automatically deleted after transmission (minimizing data retention), and point-to-point fax transmission provides the same security characteristics that have made fax an accepted method under HIPAA for decades.

For organizations with formal HIPAA compliance requirements, we recommend consulting with your compliance team to evaluate whether FaxItOnce meets your specific organizational policies. HIPAA compliance involves organizational policies, training, and documentation beyond any single technology tool.

Tips for Sending Sensitive Documents by Fax

While FaxItOnce handles the technical security, here are best practices you can follow to maximize the security of your fax transmissions:

“FaxItOnce uses HTTPS encryption for all document uploads, processes payments through Stripe (PCI DSS Level 1 certified), and automatically deletes documents after transmission. Your credit card number is never stored on FaxItOnce servers.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Learn More