Royal Mail, the British postal and courier service began switching all snail mail stamps to barcoded stamps last year. The purpose of the barcode was to enhance security, deter stamp reuse, and possibly prevent forgeries—which it has failed to do.

If a stamp have a barcode, why not just let people who have printers at home to print it on the envelope directly? This eliminates the need to buy physical stamp, thus the probability of buying counterfeit stamps.

  • @solrizeEnglish
    11•9 months ago

    Are the bar codes really to prevent forgery? Or some other purpose? I’d never heard of counterfeit stamps before. It would be like counterfeiting one dollar bills.

    • umami_wasabiOPEnglish
      5•9 months ago

      I believe counterfeit stamps is always a problem but never been discussed publicly, though I can’t deny the barcode could be used for other purposes like tracking internally.

      And you’re right at counterfeiting 1 dollar bills analogy. People can just print and mail it at a lower than what real stamp cost, sell it to unsuspicious people and earn the difference.