April 17, 2009
Mail theft is an important issue
Langley MP Mark Warawa deserves credit for pressing hard on the issue of mail theft and security.
Through his persistence on this issue, it appears that Canada Post is finally starting to change its tune.
For years, Canada Post has claimed that there is no real problem with mail theft. The Crown corporation’s spokespeople have stated that community mail boxes are generally safe, and they have refused to consider the issue of rural mail theft at all.
Yet mail theft has been a problem for years. More than 10 years ago, I interviewed an inmate of the Alouette River Correctional Centre in Maple Ridge, whose specialty was mail theft.
He went into some detail about how he obtained postal uniforms and postal keys, and went into apartment mailboxes to search the mail for credit cards. He would then use those cards and go out and charge all he could. He was adamant that he was not doing anything wrong — he hated banks and felt that any damage he could do to their bottom line was justified.
The theft of postal keys is still a problem today. It is one reason that there is continued mail theft and a growing problem with identity theft.
Community mail boxes are not as secure as they could be. If someone really wants to break in, they can find a way.
When it comes to rural areas, people are really on their own. I live on a rural mail route, and many of the people on my street have installed high-security, locked mailboxes at considerable expense, just so they can be sure of actually receiving their mail.
Canada Post has to take this issue more seriously. In an age when computers are omnipresent, where e-commerce is growing and where identity theft can be very lucrative, there has to be more measures taken to protect mail from thieves.
In fact, one of the questions that needs to be asked is this — is there a better way of delivering sensitive personal information? Many companies do billing by e-mail, and many people pay those bills online.
While some information can be used if bills are stolen (particularly credit card bills), the most damaging thefts are of credit cards and cheques.
While banks and other credit card issuers have instituted many security measures for new credit cards, they continue to be stolen. Would it perhaps make sense to deliver credit cards by courier, so that the recipient actually has to sign for them? Or should new ones be sent to bank branches and picked up there after proper identification is shown?
Making mailboxes more secure and paying more attention to how and when mail is delivered is very important. However, as identity theft expert George Greenwood points out at his seminars, identity theft takes many forms and is going to become an even more lucrative pastime for thieves in the future.
Canada Post must take every step possible to reduce its likelihood, and most importantly, we as consumers must pay far more attention to how we get our financial and other highly personal information.
