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In the US, I was in a government office a few days ago because I was told that if instead of uploaded documents via a website and waiting 10-45 days to have them reviewed I could go into a local office and provide these documents and they would review them on-site.

So I set off on a 35 minute drive to the local office.

While the wait times were shorter in the physical building I had to chuckle when I thought they were just collecting documents and uploading them to the same online portal I was warned would take a fair bit of time, but that I needed to allow a few more days past the 45 day limit because they fax them into the same remote place periodically. Their email system for the document collecting office does not allow email attachment of documents.

My other option, I kid you not, was to used their "house" cell phone and login to sensitive accounts, bank ect. And screenshot the information and use the same web-form to upload said documents.

Oh, and covid, I could not touch the "house" cellphone but he would wanted me to write my logins in a piece of scratch paper and he could navigate for me based on my direction.



I've had this experience with better results. I had a tax issue that I tried to resolve via phone, email, and paper mail for over a year. Finally went to the local office and they resolved it on the spot in 10 minutes.


Be glad they don't allow emailing important documents, they certainly wouldn't encrypt them if they did.


I had to drop off a bunch of property tax documents for the city assessor in a tier 1 city. There was just a cardbox box in a hallway with a sign taped to it 'Homestead Applications'. I could have taken all the other applications out of the box when I put mine in if i wanted to.

Emailing unencrypted documents honestly sounds a bit better to me then leaving all my info in a publicly accessible box.




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