UPS and HP launch secure online courier service

United Parcel Service (UPS) has teamed up with Hewlett-Packard (HP) to offer secure online delivery of paper-based documents.

The joint service is aimed at businesses which currently rely on overnight couriers, such as the legal and medical industries. It promises to scan and replicate paper-based documents, using HP Digital Sender software, and guarantees online delivery via UPS' Online Courier tracking technology.

But analysts are concerned that a lack of support for PKI (public key infrastructure) could prevent the service being used for confidential documents.

Martha Bennett, VP of European Research at Giga Information, told Silicon.com: "Passwords and encryption are fine for dealing with documents where a security breach is not a huge risk, but if it's confidential, you need a third-party authorised digital signature as proof of ID."

David Engels, senior staff solicitor, added: "Digital signatures are the only way to make a document legally binding."

But Kim Marchner, head of the Document Exchange Group at UPS, insisted PKI was not necessarily the best route. "We offer PKI as a customised service for specific pilot trials, but the market is not yet ready for widespread implementation."

She said the UPS service relied on SSL (secure sockets layer) to provide up to 128-bit strength encryption, depending on the location of the recipient. Digital certification services are available as an extra, via UPS partner, Verisign.

Marchner was confident that UPS could take on Royal Mail, which launched a PKI-based document transmission service, Viacode, in March. She said the HP/UPS partnership made the transmission of paper-based documents a reality for the first time.