No more red stamps affixed to envelopes from January 1st. To send urgent mail in 24 hours, now you will have to go through the red e-Letter at the price of 1.49 euros. The beginning? Scan and then print the mail in question at the destination, which implies, in fact, the end of the confidentiality of the mail.
More specifically, the sender will have to scan or write their mail directly on the La Poste website before it is printed and then envelope it at the destination.
For residents suffering from the digital divide (8 million French people do not have access to the Internet at home, according to a 2019 INSEE study, and almost a third of users do not have basic knowledge of IT tools), it will be possible to go directly to a La Poste office with its paper mail. From there, an advisor will scan the mail using a secure phone or tablet. The mail is then sent to the La Poste servers closest to the recipient. The letter is then printed and wrapped.
What about confidentiality? The Post ensures that measures are put in place to secure the process. The letters are scanned “in front of the customer” and then the letter is printed in “secure, locked spaces accessible only to authorized personnel,” the company explains. Printing and inserting are done by machines and not by employees.
“Deleted” data
In total, all La Poste employees, that is, more than 20,000 people, are authorized to scan mail. “They have taken the oath and are already used to using digital with our Smarteo tool”, a Samsung Galaxy phone installed in the offices since 2015.
Once printed, the mail will be deleted from the servers on the La Poste side, but will be stored for one year so that the sender can access it in the event of a claim, “according to the GDPR regulations and the data centers are secure and are based in France,” adds La Poste.
The end of the physical red stamp gives way, therefore, to a digital service. The green letter that takes three days to send does not change, and represents 80% of the mail. For mail, which required a red stamp like checks or care sheets, La Poste is launching a new stamp: the Letter Plus Service sent in D+2 at the price of 2.95 euros, therefore more expensive than the stamp red.
Last September, the Sud PTT union launched a petition, which received 28,000 signatures, to oppose the end of the red stamp, fearing job cuts and a strengthening of the digital divide.
Source: BFM TV
