Hi, I'm an IT guy for a local municipality:

We operate FAX machines. Mostly advertisements arrive these days, but also offers for contracts.

The reason why FAX machines were so widely used is because they offer a unique combination of factors. Those factors are:

• They are fast
• They are secure/secret (*)
• They are valid for contracts

(*) Not really, but they were defined as secure/secret during a time when it was illegal to wiretap telephone lines without approval by a judge.

No modern tech offers the same combination. For example E-Mails are transmitted unencrypted most of the times and as we know since the Snowden leaks, everything going over the internet is intercepted and read if it isn't encrypted.

DE-Mail was designed to fix that problem, but since it wasn't widely adopted it is dying a slow death. The Telekom shut their DE-mail service down last year.

One huge chance that might make a difference is the new electronic ID-card. You can use it to file your taxes, and i wouldn't be surprised if way more will happen with it later.