Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the United States Postal Service (USPS) should assess whether the costs of the new Electronic Advance Data (EAD) program outweigh the benefits.
In 2014 and 2015, USPS and CPB launched two pilot programs at the New York International Service Center (ISC) to target some pieces of mail for inspection using some of the EAD received through data-sharing agreements with foreign postal operators.
Under these programs, CBP tagged certain mail for inspection. When USPS employees scan a tagged item, they receive an alert and set the item aside.
Locating targeted mail once it arrives at an ISC, however, has presented challenges. USPS was only able to provide 82 and 58 percent of the tagged mail for the two pilot programs.
The two organizations did not collect information related to an agreed-upon performance target and have not evaluated the programs to determine if they achieved desired outcomes.
“Because CBP and USPS lack clear performance goals for these pilots, they risk spending additional time and resources expanding them prior to fully assessing the pilots’ success or failure,” GAO said. “In our report, we found that the costs and benefits of using EAD to target mail for inspection are unclear.”
In its report, GAO recommended that USPS and CBP set measurable performance goals for pilot programs and evaluate the costs and benefits of EAD targeting programs as compared to other targeting tactics.
CBP and USPS agreed with the recommendations. CBP plans to implement them by Feb. 28, 2018.