From January 1, the physical red stamp is replaced by the red e-Letter, 100% digital. The company ensures that everything is thought out to ensure the confidentiality of mail.
No more red stamp stuck on the envelopes from January 1st. To send urgent mail within 24 hours, you will now have to go through the red e-Letter at the price of 1.49 euros. The principle? Scan then print the mail in question at the place of destination, which therefore implies, de facto, the end of the confidentiality of the mail.
“The red stamp today represents only 4% of the mail” justifies La Poste to Tech&Co.
Very concretely, the sender will have to scan or type his mail directly on the La Poste website before it is printed and then put in envelopes at the place of destination.
For the inhabitants who suffer from the digital divide (8 million French people do not have access to the Internet from home, according to a 2019 INSEE study, and almost a third of users have no basic knowledge of IT tools), it will be possible to go directly to a La Poste office with their paper mail. From there, an advisor will scan the mail using a tablet or a secure phone. Then, the mail is sent to the servers at La Poste closest to the recipient. The letter is then printed and enveloped.
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 spaces, locked and accessible only to authorized personnel”, explains the company. Printing and inserting are done by machines and not by employees.
Data “erased”
In total, all La Poste employees, i.e. 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 in place in offices since 2015.
Once printed, the mail will be erased from the servers on the La Poste side, but it will be stored for one year so that the sender can have access to it in the event of a complaint, “according to the RGPD rules and the data centers are secure. and based in France”, adds La Poste.
The end of the physical red stamp therefore gives way to a digital service. The green letter which takes three days to be sent does not change, and represents 80% of the mail. For mail, which required a red stamp such as checks or care sheets, La Poste is launching a new stamp: the Letter service plus sent on D + 2 at the price of 2.95 euros, therefore more expensive than the red stamp .
Last September, the Sud PTT union launched a petition, which received 28,000 signatures, to oppose the end of the red stamp, because it fears job cuts and a strengthening of the digital divide.
