Mailpiece imprinted with a delivery address only in a form which is not human readable and method and system for producing same

摘要

A mailpiece having a postal indicium including information in two dimensional bar code form, the bar coded information including a delivery address which is not otherwise imprinted on the mailpiece surface, and methods and systems for producing such mailpieces in order to protect data such as a mailing list. Delivery information in bar code form is provided by a third party and incorporated in, or appended to, a postal indicium such as an IBIP indicium without disclosure to the party actually producing the mailpiece and without printing the delivery address onto the mailpiece. A postal service scans the delivery address while scanning the postal indicium and determines the delivery information. The delivery information can be an address or can be a pointer to a data base of addresses. Either form of delivery information can be encrypted for increased security.