I scanned an envelope which had a dot matrix 4-state barcode by the postal service. It did not appear on the /bilevel/ scan. So I tried very low thresholds (the point at which light gray is treated as either black or white). The threshold needed to retain the fluorescent(†) barcode is so low that black text on the same scan becomes too dirty for OCR to work.
The US postal service scans (all?) envelopes and thus has records of who is sending mail to who. (Do other countries do this?) Anyway, I wonder how we might counter the privacy intrusion. What if the return address on an envelope is printed in fluorescent orange… would the return address be suppressed from envelope scans? IIUC, they would have to scan in grayscale or color to capture it, which would take a lot more storage space. So they are probably doing bitonal scans. Yellow would work too but it’s much harder for an eye to see. This fluorescent orange is readable enough to a human eye but apparently tricky for a machine.
Of course the return address is optional, so the best privacy is to simply not supply a return address. But if return service is wanted, supplying a return address is inherently needed.
Another thought: suppose an address is dark blue text on a light blue background, or white text on a medium blue background. The scanning software would have to be quite advanced to choose a threshold that treats the text differently than the background, no? If the return address is fluorescent orange and the destination address has a background color, envelopes could perhaps be printed in a way that stifles the mass surveillance.
(†) I cannot concretely assert that it is fluorescent; just describing what it looks like.
You mention that there may be a privacy issue that the postal service scans recipients and senders of letters.
This to me falls under reasonable loss of privacy, without reading (or “scanning”) the adresses, how could the postal system work?
As for codes that becomes invisible after scanning, what would the point be?
A code like that has very little actual value, and it honestly sounds like a classic ludicrous conspiracy theory based on a random chance.
This to me falls under reasonable loss of privacy,
A good standard for what’s “reasonable” is set out by data minimisation principles, like what you have in Europe’s GDPR Article 5.
Storing the routing data on the envelope itself is a form of data minimisation, as opposed to collecting it into a DB.
without reading (or “scanning”) the adresses, how could the postal system work?
I believe USPS has been in service for over 100 years, and demonstrated the capability of mail delivery as far back as horseback delivery (before Alan Turing was born).
It was only in the past ~15 years or so that USPS began offering a notification service that recipients can subscribe to. You get an email showing raster scans of envelopes that are out for delivery or have been delivered, for those who fancy that. But this new service does not just scan images for subscribers. Either your region offers this extra feature, or not. And if they do, then they scan /everyones/ envelopes whether they subscribe or not. Perhaps all regions offer it now… I’m not up to date on the progress of this rollout.
pre-15 years ago (or so), the scanning was not building a database of images of envelopes (AFAIK). It was merely printing a barcode of the destination address for routing purposes. The barcode is not a reference to a DB record – it’s an actual address encodified. So this routing info is stored on the envelope itself, not in a DB.
As for codes that becomes invisible after scanning, what would the point be?
What do you mean “codes”?
They use the fluorescent ink for barcodes. I describe the idea of using a like-colored ink for textual addresses, so the human postal worker can still read it and use it for routing, but it would be useless for mass surveillance. And to be clear, the return address is only needed for return routing. Sure, if they read the return address for routing purposes they are also likely storing it in the DB, but it’s a fair trade-off at that point because it’s a rare circumstance that return service is triggered.
You’d probably just be making some poor postal worker have to type the information into their system manually when it fails to scan
For return service, indeed. In that very rare event, they would have to hand enter it just as they do for hand-written addresses.
Your sympathy is backwards though. Postal workers’s job security is under threat currently as people move away from postal service. Denmark eliminates postal service for the whole country this year.
(update) Also, other countries are downgrading the postal service and cutting staff in the drive toward digital transformation.
I would assume it gets entered into the system when they process it initially not when they need to return it.
That would not make economic sense. Why would they hand-enter grandma’s chicken scratch hand-written return address when it is not needed for outbound routing? Anyone wasting money like that is not competent for their job.
Just finding the return address takes time in itself. It could be on the top left, or it could be a one-liner just above the destination address, or it could be on the backside, or not even supplied. They should only be looking for it when it is needed.
It’s fair to assume in this case USPS is not that incompetently wasteful. But if they are, then that incompetence is the problem (not how we choose to address our envelopes).
Anyone wasting money like that is not competent for their job.
Your logic is off-target, as this is caused by “management”, not the individual.
It’s fair to assume in this case USPS is not that incompetently wasteful.
No. It isn’t.
The USPS is being intentionally mismanaged as a step towards dismantling the pillars of US government.
Your logic is off-target, as this is caused by “management”, not the individual.
It is management that I was referring to. That should be obvious. The incompetence belongs to whoever makes the incompetent decision, which in this case would be high in upper management.
It’s fair to assume in this case USPS is not that incompetently wasteful.
No. It isn’t.
The USPS is being intentionally mismanaged as a step towards dismantling the pillars of US government.
A safe assumption need not be an accurate assumption. It’s about consequences. Incompetence has consequences – and rightfully so. IOW, when the assumption is wrong, it does not obviate the purpose of my action. Therefore the assumption is safe.
