The world’s national post offices have agreed on new regulations enabling the use of digitalpostmarks on an international basis. The agreement at the Postal Operations Council of the
Universal Postal Union (UPU) heralds increasing worldwide use of “e-stamps” beyond the majorindustrialised countries.Up to 50 million transactions are estimated to take place annually using a digital postmark ofthe type developed by the Posts of Canada, France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and the United States,the UPU said in a statement. Although the UPU’s 2004 congress recognized the digital postmark as anew optional postal service, the rules and regulations governing its use among the 190 members ofthe UPU still had to be developed and adopted. This was achieved at the 2006 session of the PostalOperations Council that concludes today (April 7) at UPU headquarters in Berne.
“This is a big step forward, because we now have an operating policy, as for physical mail, thatdefines the rules and standards by which Posts worldwide can authenticate digital postmarks amongthemselves,” said Canada’s Dean Pope, Chairman of the UPU’s Electronic Products and Services Groupthat proposed the new regulations for inclusion in the UPU’s Letter Post Regulations. “Posts nowhave a policy, regulations and an international standard against which any digital postmark servicethey develop can be measured. This is very important as Posts build people’s trust in electronicservices.”
The UPU’s Letter Post Regulations, the rules governing the international exchange of letters,make up the UPU Convention and are binding on the organization’s 190 member countries. This meansthat the UPU Convention now covers the digital postmark, making it easier for the UPU, a UnitedNations specialized agency for international postal services, to assist its members in furtherdeveloping the market for worldwide digital postmark services.
The Posts of several industrialized countries use a digital postmark, and the UPU has developeda worldwide standard for it. The digital postmark provides evidential proof of an electronic event,in a certain form, at a certain time, and involving one or more parties. It brings all the benefitsof the traditional paper-based postmark to electronic documents, proving that, thanks to featuressuch as date and time stamping, digital identity capture, content verification and encryption, thecontent of an electronic message has not been altered. The digital postmark acts as valid, legalevidence of who signed what and when.
“The regulations provide for the interoperability of the digital postmark between Posts, whichwill enable the industry to grow as more and more international transactions become possible,”added Pope.
The UPU, a United Nations specialized agency based in Berne (Switzerland), comprises 190 postoffices with five million employees who process and deliver each year 430 billion domesticletters, six billion international items and more than 5.4 billion parcels.
