Drowning in comms? There’s a postbox for that

A call has gone out for governments to establish a single, universal digital mailbox as essential public infrastructure.

The Case for a Universal Postal Digital Mailbox, a policy white paper by Copenhagen Economics and e-Boks Group, sets out five policy recommendations and argues that no country – not even Denmark, a global frontrunner in digital government – has fully recreated the universality of the physical letterbox in the digital world.

The e-Boks Group encapsulated the issue in practical terms: “Tax notices in one app. Pension statements in another. Health records behind a third login… the shift from physical to digital mail has created a fragmented landscape where citizens risk missing critical communication.”

The white paper warns that fragmentation exposes citizens to fraud and impersonation, drives up compliance costs for senders, weakens legal certainty around delivery, and may be incompatible with rising digital identity and cybersecurity requirements.

It recommends that governments treat a universal digital mailbox as critical infrastructure, comparable to a postal address or a national ID, and ensure every citizen and business has access to a single, secure inbox for essential communication. 

However, its suggestion that national postal operators are natural candidates to anchor such a system will not to down well in countries with flailing and failing postal systems, including the United States, United Kingdom and South Africa.  In these countries, characterising these institutions as having “public trust, regulated networks and experience with sensitive communication” may not be a winning argument to “giving the postal sector a central role in the next phase of digital government”.

A more critical question, however, is how they address the danger of exposure to potential cyber criminals, since a universal mailbox potentially represents a massive single point of failure.

Susanne Søndahl Wolff, director of communications and ESG at e-Boks, told Gadget this was “an important and very legitimate question”.

“A universal digital mailbox should not be understood as simply concentrating all communication in one unprotected system,” she told us. “On the contrary, the case for a universal digital mailbox is that essential communication should be handled through infrastructure that is purpose-built, regulated and secured for sensitive communication, rather than being spread across e-mail, apps, portals, and less consistent digital channels.”

She argued that it was the very fragmentation of communications that increases cyber risk. 

“When citizens and businesses receive important messages through many different channels, it becomes harder to know which messages are legitimate, easier for criminals to impersonate trusted senders, and more difficult for organisations to maintain consistent standards for authentication, encryption, storage, audit trails, and legal delivery.

“A universal digital mailbox can reduce these risks if it is designed as critical digital infrastructure with strong safeguards. That means secure authentication, verified senders, encryption, access controls, monitoring, auditability, resilience, and clear governance. 

“e-Boks, for example, operates as a closed communication system where senders are validated, helping recipients know that the sender is known by the system. e-Boks also describes the use of encryption and access controls to protect documents from unauthorised access.”

She said that the “single point of failure” concern was therefore exactly why this type of infrastructure had to be subject to high security, redundancy, and regulatory requirements. 

To support the development of a universal digital mailbox, the white paper outlines five policy recommendations:

1. Develop a digitalisation strategy centred on a single universal mailbox.
2. Strengthen trust through security, identity verification and privacy by design.
3. Consider a clear government mandate for postal operators to provide digital mailbox services where market incentives are insufficient.
4. Promote digital inclusion by using physical channels as onboarding and support points.
5. Prevent vendor lock-in through data portability and common standards

The paper stresses that a universal digital mailbox should complement not replace physical mail, with the goal of making digital communication as structured and trustworthy as the postal system it is gradually replacing.

Mindaugas Cerpickis, partner at Copenhagen Economics, encapsulated the use case: “Digital communication has become essential infrastructure for modern economies. However, unlike physical mail, important digital communication is increasingly fragmented across multiple platforms rather than delivered to a single mailbox. This fragmentation generates inefficiencies, reduces accessibility, and may undermine trust.”

• Read the white paper, The Case for a Universal Postal Digital Mailbox, here.