USPS Backs Off Private Mailbox Rule
After months of wrangling with private mailbox operators, the U.S. Postal Service last week agreed to rescind a recently adopted rule to require Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies (CMRA’s) to publicly disclose personally identifiable information about their customers.
The USPS said in an Aug. 26 Federal Register that it was prohibiting CMRA’s from publicly disclosing information about their customers, such as their names, addresses, telephone numbers, and other personal data, except to “federal, state and local government agency requesters; when needed for service of legal process or pursuant to a subpoena or court order.”
Earlier in the year the USPS angered CMRA’s and many of their customers when it ordered private mailbox operators to disclose customer information to local postal officials as a way of combating identity theft and mail fraud.
