Privacy advocates are worried about a proposal that the U.S. Postal Service use tracking codes to identify mail senders and recipients, according to the Washington Post.
Rick Merritt, executive director of PostalWatch, told that Post, “There will be some serious privacy concerns if it becomes mandatory that all mail be sender identified.
But Gene Del Polito, president of the Association for Postal Commerce, commented to Direct Newsline that the concern is “overblown.”
The “Intelligent Mail” idea was first floated by the USPS several years ago. Private shippers like United Parcel Service and Federal Express already track shipments using bar codes, the Post continued.
The idea recently resurfaced in the report filed by President’s Commission on the U.S. Postal Service. According to the Post, the commission recommended that the USPS work with the Department of Homeland Security to study the creation of such a program.
In a separate development, the Mailer’s Council hailed the commission’s report and supported one of its key proposals—that Congress pass postal reform legislation.
“The Postal Service is part of a $9 billion mailing industry that supports 9 million jobs, many of which are threatened by a postal business model that is out of date,” said Robert E. McLean, executive director of the Mailers Council, in a statement. “Lacking significant postal reform, the Postal Service can survive only with substantially higher postage, a government bailout, or both.”
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