Spanish Post Office launches tracking system

March 21, 2007 • National News • 1 Comments

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“Lost in the post” excuse set to come to an end with revolutionary system

FRUSTRATING delays in the arrival of a letter or parcel could soon be at an end after the Spanish post office introduced a revolutionary new electronic tagging system.
The first of its kind in Europe, Correos (the Spanish post office) has attached tags on certain letters and parcels to ensure they reach their
recipients.

The tags, which are
contained under small stickers, emit radio signals. Scanners in sorting
officers throughout the country can then monitor the mail’s progress. class=SpellE>Correos style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'> handles more than 5 billion letters and
parcels per year.

In a test run for the
scheme, 10,000 letters will be tagged and electronically tracked.

The Spanish post office has
spent more than one million euros installing almost 2,000 antennae and 330 tag
readers in 16 sorting offices in lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>Spain lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>.

A spokesman for class=SpellE>Correos said: “The
system allows us to keep control of mail processing automatically and lets us
detect bottlenecks in the system and solve them as they happen.”

However, some have
suggested the tagging system is being used to monitor what is being posted.

The French and German post
offices have shown an interest in the scheme.

But some critics have
suggested putting chips on mail is another way to monitor what individuals are
sending in the post.

In an effort to dispel
these concerns, Correos stressed no personal
information about the sender or the recipient is exchanged. The Spanish Data
Protection Agency said the post office is entitled to use the information on
all mail to send letters and parcels, so use of the chip did not break any law.

French and Dutch post
office representatives have already expressed an interest in the service. But
so far, the Royal Mail has not been in touch.

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Reader Comments »

Sevim Kalemkoy

October 9th, 2009 11:13 am

WE have sent registrated envelope to Canary-Spain from Turkey – Istanbul. Registriation number is RR09763828TR

but it has been not received by receiver yet. Receiver Name is No Bull Satellite
address is : Calle ISAAC Aleniz 53/54 La concha, arrecite, Lanzarote las Palmas de Gren CANARIA / SPAIN – ISPANYA

I will appriciate to searching it.

Kind Regards

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