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Comment by malandrew | Hacker News Reader

I have mixed feelings about unformed delivery as I don’t think government should have scanned copies of all the mail you get. It’s as personal as when we decided that your video rental history was.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

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They scan all mail already, that's how it gets routed to each home. Informed delivery just has them email you those images they are already taking.

Also in case you were thinking it, they don't open the boxes/letters. It's just the front of it

Well they likely x-ray them too.

They definitely X-ray parcels, for security. Shortly after 9/11, I remember a local post office failing to detect explosives and it getting reported on; this was notable for two reasons:

- one of the hijackers had received a knife through the mail, and it had been processed through that office, so there was extra scrutiny at the time

- a few years prior, that office processed and delivered a package the Unabomber sent that killed someone

Yes, the USPS started scanning packages and letters since the great Anthrax scares. This is just a productization of an already widespread, in-use technology.

The majority of mail screening these days is to find illegal drugs. However, given that so many drugs get through, it seems they only x-ray a small subset.

They scanned them before then to route them.

likely transactional data to sustain operations vs retaining the information, which may only happen after opting into the informed delivery service.

Not to worry, the government is too inefficient and does not have the technology to convert all that data into anything personalized

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