Upload your documents securely

How to protect your personal sensitive information

You have to know two main terms; Secure Sockets Layer (SSL Certificates) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS). SSL Certificates are small data files that digitally bind a cryptographic key to an organization's details. When installed on a web server, it activates the padlock and the https protocol and allows secure connections from a web server to a browser.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol - Secure (HTTPS)

HTTPS secures websites when users are providing sensitive information like credit card numbers or other personal information. The protocol offers multiple layers of data protection including data integrity, encryption, and authentication.

Sending documents over email may seem private, but even if you're using an email account that uploads attachments over a more secure HTTPS connection, you have no control over your recipient's server, and they may download your attachment from an unencrypted HTTP connection. Now say they did that from a public Wi-Fi network. Things just got very un-secure.

If you're set on transferring the files digitally, you should encrypt them (which you can do using one of archiving tools), you could create a password-protected archive (with super-strong AES-256 encryption). You would still need to give your tax preparer the password to your encrypted archive, which you wouldn't want to do over email for the same reason you wouldn't want to send the files as attachments.