Enhanced Postal Site Offers Package Tracking

Keeping tabs on your shipments with the United States Postal Service is now a snap. Or more accurately, a click, thanks to its online service launched Friday.

Features offered include the ability to find a local postal outlet and get a correct zip code. Users can also log on to an Express Mail page, enter a shipment number and, with the click of the mouse, find out whether Aunt Betty's birthday parcel arrived at the local outlet.

The Postal Service is also testing a business version of Express Mail called Priority Mail, which allows business customers to stick a customized bar code onto a package and trace it online.

While the USPS online service is relatively new, it joins a number of private courier companies, including United Parcel Service and Purolator, that offer similar services.

But how secure are their sites? What if the parcel wasn't a new sweater but computer parts? Could a hacker discover a package's contents and where to intercept the parcel?

USPS spokesperson Mark Saunders doesn't think so, at least as far as the post office is concerned. "Customers receive a unique tracking number. Someone would have to know that number and what was in the shipment first. Even at that, all a return will tell them is 'Yes, it has been delivered,' or 'Yes, it is at the facility.'"

In other words, the USPS doesn't divulge details on the Net about what's en route via truck or plane. Details stay within the domain of its postal stations.

The same cannot be said about some of the bigger courier companies. UPS, Purolator, and Federal Express all offer unsecured online tracking (Purolator's customers need a PIN to trace a package) that, in some cases, tells the tracer when a package is on a van or aircraft.

Still, most courier companies acknowledge their site's shortcomings and now offer software packages that allow direct and secure communication between user and shipper.

Post office officials say their new site is just one of several innovations customers can expect in the future. The USPS has already spent $5 billion in optical character recognition technology and is about to step into the new world of robotics.