Could the U.S. Postal Service, the federal government’s most trusted agency, become the nation’s ID verifier of choice? An inspector general’s report says the USPS is perfectly situated to at least play a major role in online and in-person identity proofing. Increased biometric services availability could help.
The report focuses on how the nation’s post offices – at 34,000, there are more of them than police stations (20,000) – could provide biometric and other verification services for itself and other government agencies.
But it might also “maximize the commercial and social value” of identity verification by providing the services to businesses, too, writes the inspector general’s office. That is a more distant possibility because it would require Congressional approval to lift relevant operational restrictions.
Such an expansion also would require the Post Office to find the money to pay for it, as it is a self-funding body.
Today, 17,000 retail postal outlets provide in-person proofing – comparing documents to the person presenting them. These customers submit to proofing to get a post office box or to enroll in a program such as Informed Delivery.