Deliveries To People Not Place

With so much of our lives going online, delivery has become a prime factor in many of our daily routines, to ensure we receive essential items as social distancing measures remain in place. This once trivial matter has only grown more critical as the delivery networks continue to cope with unprecedented demand. Now is the time to ruminate on innovation to help streamline ecommerce deliveries in the new normal. 

As the delivery network was forced to adapt very quickly to social distancing guidelines put in place by the government, the easiest solution was to do away with signatures on delivery. These days, when a package arrives, it’s accompanied by a barely audible knock and a prompt disappearing act. No confirmation is provided, and proof of delivery is often left to the good faith of the delivery driver. Not only does this put the customer’s package at risk (e.g lost deliveries or items falling into the wrong hands) but the reputation of the delivery service too. As a result, chargeback fraud—where customers directly claim money back from their payments provider after a failed delivery—is on the rise. 

Fortunately, we live in an age of constant innovation and progress. As such the idea of delivering items to people wherever they are—as opposed to a delivery address, thus overcoming last-mile delivery challenges—is tipped to become a reality sooner rather than later. Starship Technologies recently showed us how autonomous delivery could be achieved with miniature autonomous vehicles delivering food to almost 200,000 Milton Keynes residents during the lockdown.  

With Covid-19 continuing to pile the pressure on retailers, merchants, and delivery companies to get items to people, this shift is likely to occur sooner than anyone was expecting. 

Why People?

The holy grail in parcel delivery is a service that places your package in your hands, wherever you are. But a digital ID is the necessary cornerstone in revolutionizing the delivery process especially removing the address restriction, a cost that is reported to have surpassed £1.6bn (US$2bn) for failed parcel deliveries in the UK alone. Clearly there’s a growing need for delivery directly to the person.By coupling blockchain with the irrefutability of biometric verification, a unique and personal digital identity is created. The beauty of this method is the fact that no one, besides the owner, is able to use the digital ID—eradicating any potential for fraud and preserving privacy. As a result, this contactless biometrically verified ID can provide unquestionable confirmation of delivery. A courier could simply request biometric ID verification from the recipient, confirming the delivery location and receipt for items, providing instant proof of delivery without any need for indiscernible signatures or any physical contact. This method frees up numerous obstacles for both recipients and couriers, including decreasing delivery failure and nullifying the chargeback issue, as well as avoiding reputational damage. 

Additionally, courier companies can redirect once a package is in transit, which can help cut delivery times by 50 percent. 

Covid-Related Delivery Issues

The problem is only growing worse amid Covid-19. In April, shortly after the lockdowns began, researchers from Citizens Advice found that more than 28% of people had delivery issues, including late delivery or incorrect tracking information. Come May, the problem had exacerbated with 33% or 1 in 3 people reporting related issues. 

However, once the tipping point of failed delivery meets the cost of redirecting to the person, verified digital ID & blockchain will eradicate the problem. Blockchain, in particular, has been shown to streamline the supply chains of couriers. According to research from DHL, logistics solutions are tied to manual data entry and paper-based documentation. This makes it troublesome to track the providence of deliveries and the status of shipments as they move along the supply chain. This process can be fully automated via blockchain, reducing costs associated with erroneous and failed deliveries.

While blockchain traces and verifies the shipment at every turn, biometric verification can be used for both contactless verification and payment.  This acts to not only streamline the process but provides security of the package and the privacy of its contents too, which is especially important for deliveries such as credit cards (although they are probably soon to disappear). We’re all used to similar processes in our day-to-day lives, open an app, choose between the menus of copious restaurants, click a few buttons, and within minutes you can have a banquet at your door.  

However, verified ID isn’t as rudimentary as delivering to an app. While the UX should act the same, what’s under the hood will differ dramatically. With traditional apps, it’s all too easy to use a fraudulent identity, or a stolen card and pilfer deliveries. This would be impossible with an ID verified by user biometrics and underpinned by blockchain as the data is intrinsically linked to the physical person—not just stored on a device or app. 

Moreover, by harnessing verified ID, an entire host of possibilities emerge. It negates the need for passwords, requiring a simple biometric verification instead. This also means that you no longer need to surrender every personal detail to a third-party merchant. It subverts issues of age verification or checks via biometric acceptance of the package with all data verified and stored via an immutable and blockchain. But most importantly—especially for couriers—verified IDs provide peace of mind because while the place may not be verified, the person is – ensuring that the banquet of food actually gets to the right person, thus reducing the ever increasing fraud in food delivery

The notion even extends beyond delivery and into other industries. Travel, for example, could be streamlined further by removing the need for paper ID cards and passports, replacing them entirely with digital IDs. It could also help clamp down on fake product reviews. Businesses could start requiring biometrically verified ID’s in order to write reviews, thus ensuring each and every one is validated and accountable. 

Coupling Digital ID with GPS

Global position systems (GPS) are already deeply rooted in our day-to-day lives. From the apps we use to deliver food to our doors, to the taxis we take from place to place, GPS is already a hugely practical tool—so why aren’t we harnessing its potential on the user side?

Delivery companies already employ GPS to track the driver. This measure can act as a good gauge of how far a package is from our doorstep. However, adjusting this technology to trace the end-user can facilitate deliveries directly to the recipient, meaning that failed deliveries—and their costs—can be avoided. The end-user gains, knowing that they don’t have to be present in a certain location for delivery, and redirection can be made in-transit.       

Moreover, with unemployment mounting to unprecedented levels, and delivery companies straining under the pressure of increased volumes, this could act as a means to mobilise a workforce deeply in need of employment. This is especially true of the gig economy companies, which already harness GPS systems. Facilitating deliveries by utilising both digital ID, GPS, and a gig economy workforce, may prove to solve all these issues at once.   

Nevertheless, while GPS is the technology most likely to be adopted for personal delivery, it does open the door to potential privacy issues. When enabling location tracking via an app, companies are able to collate in-depth geolocation data. Even this smallest amount of this data can reveal a significant portion of personal information—which is typically sold to advertisers. And worse still, if stored on centrally held servers this data is far more vulnerable to leakage and exploitation by hackers. 

An example of this comes in the form of COVID tracking apps. In an effort to identify potential Covid carriers—and thus quell the spread of the virus—countries all over the world are rolling out these tracing systems. However, the rush to market has brought with it some unintended privacy implications. A recent security audit of the UK’s NHS contact tracing app concluded that the app not only came with some significant security flaws but it could also be exploited with ease. 

So what’s the alternative? 

The key, it seems, is decentralization. XYO, an encrypted geolocation platform, harnesses a decentralized network of devices that collects and validates geographic data—all while keeping users’ information safeguarded. Another such company, FOAM, connects geospatial data to the blockchain—doing so without GPS. Instead, it combines Ethereum smart contracts with corresponding real-world addresses and encrypts the geographic location via Geohash.

Ultimately the solutions to the myriad problems plaguing the delivery industry already exist. It’s simply a matter of time before they become a viable, cost-effective alternative. And when they do, there will be no looking back.

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