Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

Misdelivery, Tracking, and Incentives

• Several people report packages marked “delivered” or “delivery attempted” before actual delivery (often late at night), likely to satisfy driver quotas and metrics.
• Others see the reverse: items marked “shipped” when only a label is printed and the package isn’t handed to the carrier for days.
• Misdelivered physical mail (neighbors’ letters, similar street numbers, nearby streets or buildings) is common and sometimes “community‑building,” but also seen as an invasion of privacy.

How Informed Delivery Works in Practice

• Commenters explain that Informed Delivery reuses images already captured by automated sorting equipment at regional facilities.
• Images are taken early in the pipeline; physical mail may arrive days later, or be diverted/forwarded, explaining timing mismatches and “ghost” pieces that never show up.
• Some note that prior to forwarding or return-to-sender, the piece has already been imaged and emailed, so you can see mail for previous residents that you never physically receive.

Privacy and Security Concerns

• Some argue leaking envelope images is “no big deal,” noting there’s no legal expectation of privacy for the outside of mail and it has always been visible to postal workers and anyone with mailbox access.
• Others see the service as a real privacy issue when it shows mail for neighbors, previous residents, or even unrelated addresses due to forwarding or address errors.
• Multiple people point out that scanner images can sometimes reveal text through thin envelopes or windows (e.g., bank balances, healthcare info), defeating the intent of privacy patterns.
• There’s debate over how serious this is: some compare it to occasional misdelivery and shrug; others emphasize that USPS has weak controls and no obvious way to correct persistent mis‑routing of images.

Usefulness vs. Annoyance

• Fans use Informed Delivery to:
  • Decide whether to check distant mailboxes or PO boxes.
  • Coordinate mail for elderly relatives.
  • Confirm whether important items (cards, debit cards, SSNs) were even attempted for delivery.
• Critics see it as mostly junk‑mail previews, inaccurate timing, and now also an email marketing channel (including USPS’s own podcast), with no granular opt‑out.

Broader Reliability and System Issues

• Stories include lost or delayed important documents, persistent delivery of previous residents’ mail, and local post offices acknowledging inconsistencies as “expected.”
• Some blame chronic underfunding and lack of rigorous QA; others see USPS drifting toward irrelevance if reliability and privacy aren’t improved.