you can fax over POTS lines because common carriers (telcos, basically) are considered secure. But HIPAA's 'standards' are anything but strict. It doesn't spell

you can fax over POTS lines because common carriers (telcos, basically) are considered secure. But HIPAA's 'standards' are anything but strict. It doesn't spell out any standards other than noting the difference between data in flight and data at rest and that both should be secure. In some ways this is probably a good thing, in that it doesn't keep the industry locked to standards that are broken on down the road. On the other hand, because HIPAA does spell out lots of nasty penalties for breaking the rules, it would be nice to have some clarity about what the rules are.