Photo ID to ship Christmas gifts

According to a report I heard on the radio on Tuesday, United Parcel Service is making a change this month that will require folks shipping packages (such as, say, Christmas gifts — not an insignificant bit of business, you know) to show photo ID with the same name as the sender on the package.

According to the item on the radio, they think customers will understand, that, as UPS says, the customers will appreciate that this is for security and safety.

Bullshit.

This will cause endless annoyances. What happens when one person wants to go mail packages for several friends, hm? And how finely will they pick on this? If Jane Smith wants to mail a package prepared by her husband, Mark Smith, will that be OK? What if Jane goes by her maiden name, Jane Jones? What if she hyphenates, Jane Jones-Smith?

This is just asking for an already stressful holiday season to get that much worse. People can just use another shipping service, assuming that USPS, FedEx, and others don’t follow suit. But this is just stupid, and provides no safety and security at all. It makes things inconvenient for legitimate shippers in many cases, and people who are real threats will just get fake IDs.

This is worse than security theatre. It’s security nonsense.