LetterAgent
Mail physical letters by just asking your AI assistant.
Home > Guides > Fax vs mail safety
Neither wins outright: they fail in different places. A fax never enters the mail system, so it cannot be stolen from a mailbox or lost in a sorting plant, but it prints on the recipient's machine, where anyone nearby can pick it up. A sealed letter is protected by mail privacy law in the US and Canada, but it passes through many hands on its way.
A fax call is closer to a phone call than to an email. Your machine (or fax service) dials the recipient's fax number, the two machines exchange handshake tones, and the pages transmit as audio over the phone network, printing at the other end as they arrive. Over a traditional phone line, the document never sits on a server in between. With internet fax, the pages may pass through the provider's servers before the last leg over phone lines, which is one more place your document exists. Either way, the journey is point to point: there is no mailbox, no sorting plant, and no mail carrier.
| Risk | Fax | Mailed letter |
|---|---|---|
| Theft in transit | Practically nil on a phone line; slightly more exposure if the fax travels over the internet for part of the route | Mailbox theft and tampering: a federal crime in the US, an offence under the Criminal Code in Canada |
| Exposure at the endpoint | Pages print on the recipient's machine and sit in the output tray | Sealed envelope: only whoever opens the recipient's mail sees it |
| Wrong recipient | A misdialed fax goes to a stranger, with no recall | A misaddressed letter can be returned or forwarded |
| Proof it was sent | The confirmation page records the time, number dialed, and page count | Regular mail gives you nothing; certified or registered mail adds tracking and proof of delivery |
Almost never in transit. The weak points are the two ends. A wrong number sends your document to a stranger's machine, and unlike email there is no recall and no bounce you will necessarily notice: always confirm a fax number before sending anything sensitive, ideally by phone. At the receiving end, pages land in an output tray. In a shared office, a fax can sit there for hours where anyone walking past can read it. A confirmation page proves your pages transmitted; it does not prove the right person picked them up. This is why medical offices and law firms that still fax tend to keep the machine in a restricted area rather than the open bullpen.
In the mailbox and in the building. Unlocked residential mailboxes are the classic target: thieves take whatever is inside, and a letter with account numbers or a check is worth more to them than the stamp was to you. In apartment buildings, shared mail rooms add more hands between the carrier and the recipient. The law treats this seriously: in the US, mail theft is investigated by the Postal Inspection Service, and in Canada, tampering with mail is an offence under the Criminal Code. But legal protection after the fact is cold comfort if your account details are already gone. This is also why sensitive documents are worth sending certified or registered: tracking plus proof of delivery turns "it never arrived" from your problem into a documented chain.
Match the method to the recipient. Fax when you can confirm the exact fax number and the recipient will collect the pages promptly: medical offices, law firms, and government departments that still run dedicated fax lines are set up for this, and the confirmation page gives you a timestamped record of transmission. Mail when the document needs a signature trail or the recipient is an individual: a sealed envelope to a home address has fewer eyes on it than a shared office fax tray. For the highest stakes, certified or registered mail adds tracking and proof of delivery that a fax confirmation page cannot match.
LetterAgent's fax option is currently in testing: you describe the document to your AI assistant, get a per-fax quote with the page count verified, and approve the exact total before anything is sent. Faxes go to US and Canadian fax numbers only, and there are no inbound faxes. Pricing is quoted up front, and you pay once through Stripe.
Ready to fax it? Fax with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is sent.
LetterAgent is a working name. Prices include print, postage, and our service fee. US prices in USD, Canadian prices in CAD (Canadian prices exclude applicable sales tax, added at checkout). Currently in private testing.
Need help? Ask your assistant: it can check a job's status any time. If it ever can't handle something: hello@getletteragent.com