Proposed new postal security standards for International Mail

The UPU’s official bodies, the Council of Administration and the Postal Operations Council, last week endorsed a proposed resolution on minimum security standards for international mail.

The proposal will be put forth for formal adoption by UPU member countries at the 25th Universal Postal Union Congress in Doha, Qatar, in September/October 2012.

If approved, the proposed standards would force Posts worldwide to apply measures to better screen international mail and take custody of it. Posts would have to apply minimum security standards to critical facilities in their network, such as international offices of mail exchanges, which process arriving and departing international mail.

According to UPU Postal Security Expert David Bowers, the standards would establish a security baseline to the global postal network, thus reassuring civil aviation and customs organizations that international mail has gone through minimum screening measures. “Our goal is to harmonize our international standards with the ones developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization to guide air transportation of mail,” explains Bowers.

International effort

The new proposed standards are the result of two years of work by the UPU’s inter-committee on security group. It includes representatives from UPU member countries and major international organizations, such as the International Air Transport Association, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the World Customs Organization and the United States Transport Security Agency, among others.

The UPU set up the group to tighten security standards for the global postal supply chain after rigorous TSA screening measures were unilaterally applied to international mail travelling to the United States in late 2010 after two packages containing bombs were found on private courier flights destined for the United States. The packages, sent from Yemen, were intercepted in Dubai and the United Kingdom.

The UPU launched a concerted effort among all relevant parties to come up with standardized security standards for the global postal supply chain to increase the security of mail travelling by air.

Member countries had adopted recommended security standards at the last Universal Postal Congress in Geneva in 2008, but there was no obligation to implement them.

Source: Universal Postal Union News