20+ years ago I was working for a company that provided systems for secure printing of checks (including payroll checks) and direct deposit notifications. One of the things suggested as a possible enhancement was the ability to email people's direct deposit notifications to them, and I got the assignment to research it.
On a technical basis, it's trivial - you already have the data stream that's going to be sent to the printer, generating a PDF wasn't going to be an enormous roadblock (though it wouldn't have been completely trivial as the source data was PCL not PS - did you know that there was handling for that in Ghostscript, at least on the commercially-licensed side?). Encryption of PDFs also possible, either with separately-licensed open source tools or with some closed-source commercial alternatives. Even ignoring the possibility of email being intercepted in transit, encryption would have been a requirement due to the risk of someone walking up to an unattended desk and simply checking that attached PDF for someone's pay info.
The killer? The infrastructure required to assign and allow people to change their passwords including management, training, etc.. By the time you've built that, you're a chunk of the way to simply providing the payroll information within an online HR system instead.
Like the old trope about the first man on Mars being a technician for an unreliable rover, the bulk of the work and cost isn't always where you'd think it would be.
On a technical basis, it's trivial - you already have the data stream that's going to be sent to the printer, generating a PDF wasn't going to be an enormous roadblock (though it wouldn't have been completely trivial as the source data was PCL not PS - did you know that there was handling for that in Ghostscript, at least on the commercially-licensed side?). Encryption of PDFs also possible, either with separately-licensed open source tools or with some closed-source commercial alternatives. Even ignoring the possibility of email being intercepted in transit, encryption would have been a requirement due to the risk of someone walking up to an unattended desk and simply checking that attached PDF for someone's pay info.
The killer? The infrastructure required to assign and allow people to change their passwords including management, training, etc.. By the time you've built that, you're a chunk of the way to simply providing the payroll information within an online HR system instead.
Like the old trope about the first man on Mars being a technician for an unreliable rover, the bulk of the work and cost isn't always where you'd think it would be.