Informed Delivery USPS – How It Works
Informed Delivery with the US Postal Service (USPS) provides a daily notification of the postal letters and packages to be delivered to a postal service customer. The notifications consist of greyscale images of the exterior, address side of incoming letters and package tracking numbers sent to those who sign up for the service. The incoming mail is scanned before it is delivered. The mail is unopened, so the inside contents of the mail is not disclosed.
Privacy Issues
Cyber security researchers quickly took issue with Informed Delivery and USPS because it opened up the opportunity for hackers to intercept important mail while it was in transit to physical addresses. I signe dup so I could prevent anyone from posessing my notifications online. When Informed Delivery was first introduced, it was easier to sign up for the service as no identity verification was required. That meant if a hacker or mail thief signed up for Informed Delivery before the resident did, the notifications would go to the hacker. The physical address was not initially notified that someone had signed up online to receive notifications.
So, hackers could sign up for Informed Delivery for multiple addresses do they could see what was being delivered each day. Then wait for something valuable or important to be delivered. When the notification showed something worth stealing, the hacker had a window of opportunity that day to go and retrieve the mail from the physical mailbox like a new credit card, package, or a payment.
Since the cyber security privacy issue was discovered, the USPS has since added identity verification to the sign-up process. Users are asked a few questions to help verify their identity. Data for the questions and answers comes from public records and credit reports. Unfortunately, the answers are readily available from public records – it only takes a little digging to come up with the answers.
Informed Delivery with USPS is available for both residential addresses as well as post office (PO) boxes as long as the address is located within an Informed Delivery eligible zip code. A separate account must be created for each address or PQ box.
Issues with Informed Delivery with USPS
If you receive email notification from Informed Delivery with USPS, then your email box may fill up quickly depending on how much mail you receive and how many images are attached to the email. The scanned images are embedded in the email which may cause issues with your email provider. I was not paying attention to my email notifications, and the USPS emails caused an overage on my email box file size.
Informed Delivery USPS – How to Reset Your Password?
If you lose your Informed Delivery USPS account information, then you won’t be able to log into the USPS dashboard. I look at my notifications via the daily emails and never log into my dashboard. I forgot my username since I had not logged into the dashboard since I created the account. I was locked out my account afeter multiple attempts to guess my username. There is no way to reset your username or password for Informed Delivery users. If you forget your Informed Delivery USPS username or password, then you will have to create a new Informed Delivery account for each address or PO Box that you need to log into again. I never had to create a new accoutn as I successfuly guessed my username.
What is Informed Delivery with USPS?
Informed Delivery from USPS is a daily delivery notification service. My emails showed up, reliably every day. The service provides a digital scan of mail that is to be delivered from the postal service each day to the address associated with the Informed Delivery account. Notifications are sent via email and to a dashboard user can log into at any time.
The goal is to prevent mail theft, especially during peak times like Christmas. Like I did, other US Postal service customers can sign up online to access a web dashboard and daily email notifying them of mail and packages that will be delivered each day. The Postal Service automatically scans new mail then sends notifications to the recipient. The email contains digital images of the front of each first-class letter and the tracking number of any packages to be dropped off at the address associated with the USPS Informed Delivery account.
Is USPS Informed Delivery Free?
USPS does not charge for Informed Delivery service. It is completely free from fees because it is supported by paid advertisements on the web dashboard.
Does informed delivery include certified mail?
USPS Informed Delivery sends a scan of all first-class mail. Since certified mail is typically sent as first class mail it would be included in the daily scan. The recipient must still be present at the time of delivery to sign for the mail.
