The number of classic fax machines in local authorities has become manageable. The function is often found in combined printers, scanners and copiers. But very little faxing is done anymore, as a survey among authorities in MV showed. “Sending and receiving faxes only plays a very minor role in the everyday life of the Rostock city administration,” the spokesman for MV’s largest city, Ulrich Kunze, confirmed the impression. He estimates the proportion of fax usage to be in the range of one per mille.
Last year, 1,294 faxes were sent and 5,790 received in the central post office of the Hanseatic city administration. “That’s also a small amount when you consider that we send over 2,000 letters every working day,” says Kunze. Overall, there are significantly more incoming faxes than outgoing faxes. Every municipal school in the Hanseatic city also has a device with a fax function, which the majority insist on.
In the Schwerin city administration there are still three real analogue fax machines that have their own telephone connection, as well as 48 multifunctional devices that function as digital faxes via the telephone system. Even if fax communication is in sharp decline in the state capital, city spokeswoman Michaela Christen says there is a good reason for the remaining old technology. “We are also continuing to keep the analog fax machines because they were used during the cyber attack on the city administration in October 2021 have proven to be an effective emergency solution for external communication.”
Nevertheless, the fax or facsimile is increasingly receding into the background, including in the Schwerin Ministry of Justice. However, fax machines will probably have to be kept in the judicial departments until citizens and other senders and recipients have completely switched to modern communication channels, electronic legal transactions, or until the fax, as an outdated technology, loses its admissibility as a means of communication, says ministry spokesman Tilo Stolpe.
The Rostock police headquarters emphasizes that the authority’s offices can also be reached via the respective fax numbers. “Particularly for people with visual or hearing impairments, there is also the option – in addition to the Nora app – to contact the police via an emergency fax,” explains press spokesman Tobias Brille. Otherwise, the separate fax machines would now be almost completely replaced by multifunctional devices (printing, scanning, copying, faxing). Nora is the federal states’ official emergency call app.
According to spokesman Florian Stahlkopf, there are no longer any classic fax machines in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district. And the Neubrandenburg city administration no longer has a significant number in use. This is certainly due to the fact that the administration moved back to the renovated town hall in the last quarter, says city spokesman Jan Ole Kiel. “We looked at which technology was still needed and provided it with an inventory number or a “technically tested” sticker.”
