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In Germany, long-established and entrenched processes and technologies are often confused with being reliable and safe. Fax machines are still widely used, par

In Germany, long-established and entrenched processes and technologies are often confused with being reliable and safe. Fax machines are still widely used, particularly in public administration and larger organizations in general. The preposterous as well as appalling argument often heard in favour of this is that "fax is more secure than email" and somehow doesn't put privacy and the sacred German "data protection" at risk (because said data protection seemingly on applies to digital stuff). Famously - or rather notoriously, during the pandemic local German health authorities faxed case numbers and other relevant data to federal authorities, which led to massively delayed response times and a general unavailability of dependable, actionable data.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Calavar 2y ago
Fax is still widely used in the American healthcare system for the same reason. It's social reasoning rather than technical reasoning, combined with being excessively liability conscious and catering to the lowest common denominator. If you communicate confidential data by email, or really anything that's electronic and remotely accessible, it's only a matter of time until someone with poor judgment opens up their work laptop with confidential data plastered all over the screen while sitting in the middle seat on an airplane.
- BjoernKW 2y ago
  > On the other hand, a fax machine is usually located in an office that's only physically accessible to people with badge access. Well, again during the pandemic, the documentation of individual vaccinations in vaccination centres in Germany of course was done on reams of paper (because "more secure than digital" ...). That paper was then sent daily (via messenger, no less) to so-called "digitisation centres", where those piles of paper were scanned - and yes - turned into PDFs.
ale42 2y ago
> Famously - or rather notoriously, during the pandemic local German health authorities faxed case numbers and other relevant data to federal authorities, which led to massively delayed response times and a general unavailability of dependable, actionable data. Wasn't this in Switzerland? Or did it happen ALSO in Germany?
- BjoernKW 2y ago
  I don't know about Switzerland, but this very famously was known to be the case in Germany: https://www.dw.com/en/german-health-care-tackling-covid-with-paper-pen-and-a-fax-machine/a-56360491 https://www.dw.com/en/german-health-care-tackling-covid-with...
  - ale42 2y ago
    Oh well, so we had at least 2 countries counting COVID cases by fax. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science/crunching-the-numbers_why-switzerland-struggles-to-keep-track-of-coronavirus-cases/45628604 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science/crunching-the-numbers_w... (couldn't find a better source, I think they even ended up weighing fax piles to count cases, but I'd like to verify that as it might as well be an urban legend).

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Calavar 2y ago

Fax is still widely used in the American healthcare system for the same reason. It's social reasoning rather than technical reasoning, combined with being excessively liability conscious and catering to the lowest common denominator. If you communicate confidential data by email, or really anything that's electronic and remotely accessible, it's only a matter of time until someone with poor judgment opens up their work laptop with confidential data plastered all over the screen while sitting in the middle seat on an airplane.

BjoernKW 2y ago
> On the other hand, a fax machine is usually located in an office that's only physically accessible to people with badge access. Well, again during the pandemic, the documentation of individual vaccinations in vaccination centres in Germany of course was done on reams of paper (because "more secure than digital" ...). That paper was then sent daily (via messenger, no less) to so-called "digitisation centres", where those piles of paper were scanned - and yes - turned into PDFs.

ale42 2y ago

> Famously - or rather notoriously, during the pandemic local German health authorities faxed case numbers and other relevant data to federal authorities, which led to massively delayed response times and a general unavailability of dependable, actionable data. Wasn't this in Switzerland? Or did it happen ALSO in Germany?

BjoernKW 2y ago
I don't know about Switzerland, but this very famously was known to be the case in Germany: https://www.dw.com/en/german-health-care-tackling-covid-with-paper-pen-and-a-fax-machine/a-56360491 https://www.dw.com/en/german-health-care-tackling-covid-with...
- ale42 2y ago
  Oh well, so we had at least 2 countries counting COVID cases by fax. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science/crunching-the-numbers_why-switzerland-struggles-to-keep-track-of-coronavirus-cases/45628604 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science/crunching-the-numbers_w... (couldn't find a better source, I think they even ended up weighing fax piles to count cases, but I'd like to verify that as it might as well be an urban legend).