YOU flip open the mailbox and reach inside, pick up the letters and bills and other junk. Pretty straightforward, right? What you don’t know, though, is that your mail has been fitted with an inconspicuous microchip.
Sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theory buffs out there, but, no, this is not some new government scheme to invade your privacy and spy on you.
Instead, microchip-fitted mail is part of a quality-control plan undertaken by the Post Office, which hopes to improve efficiency by speeding up delivery.
The process roughly works like this: an antenna enables the chip to transmit the identification information to a reader. The reader converts the radio waves into digital information that can be passed on to computers that can make use of it.
Now the chips will store information on the date and time on which a letter, say, passed through a sorting centre.
In this way, it will be possible to know exactly how much time elapsed between arrival and delivery of mail at sorting centres. This will be applied to a sample, not all, letters.
Initially the measure will be applied to international mail, but there are plans to include domestic mail, said Postal Services director Vassos Vassiliou.
According to Vassiliou, the central sorting centre at Latsia will be the first to be installed with the necessary hardware and software. The equipment will cost somewhere in the area of £10,000.
For obvious reasons, the intention had been for Larnaca airport to host the equipment, but Vassiliou explained that there were no suitable premises available.
Vassiliou denied the move was directly related to a fine recently slapped on the Post Office for delivery delays. A £10,000 fine was imposed by the Telecommunications and Postal Services Regulator.
An investigation commissioned by the Regulator found that in many cases mail delivery times were below the standards provided by law. For example, for July 2003 just 31.5 per cent of priority, next-day mail was delivered in time; the minimum rate acceptable is 70 per cent.
As far as international mail goes, figures for October and November 2003 show that only 34.3 per cent was delivered within the three-day deadline, compared to the 75 per cent official quota.
The Post Office has said it does not contest the Regulator’s findings.
Vassiliou attributed the delays mainly to understaffing, adding that corrective measures were being taken. Over the past year, around 60 additional mailmen have been hired. Also, a better sorting system and procedures will be introduced.
And for those still using this old-style, hands-on, method of correspondence, next-day letter deliveries will cost 20 cents, and three-day deliveries 15 cents.
Paranoid tech-geeks worried that Big Brother is watching can just stay couped up in their house with their emails.
