The United States Postal Service's Informed Delivery system could be used by thieves to steal your mail, CBS News is reporting.
The system allows people to receive email from the post office with a preview of what is coming in that day's mail. The network news noted people can sign up for the service by verifying their identities by providing answers to questions like past cities and streets where they have lived.
But privacy advocate Adam Levin warns that kind of information could already be available on the dark web or found on social media sites by criminals.
And scammers, with the right information, are able to register and provide a separate email address, according to CBS News. They then can monitor when people are getting things like credit cards and checks and get them out of mailboxes soon after delivery.
Secret Service officials told CBS News the criminals can take advantage of the Informed Delivery system to "intercept mail and to further their identity theft fraud schemes."
Meanwhile postal authorities said the Informed Delivery system's data base has never been hacked.
"Informed Delivery is a criminal's worst nightmare because we are continually monitoring for any suspicious behavior, and anyone who misuses our products, we're going to detect that," said Carroll Harris of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
About 13 million customers have signed up for the service, according to KATU2.
"To be safe everyone can just sign up ahead of time before someone signs up pretending to be them," said security expert Chris Humphreys said.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.