To help the USPS to protect its source of revenue, SRI has developed algorithms that identify mail pieces with no postage or too little postage. Currently the algorithms identify mail pieces with one type of facing identification mark (FIM) but without any postage, and mail pieces with only a single one- or three-cent stamp. These algorithms are based on unique SRI techniques for finding stamps in mail-piece images and reading the denominations of the stamps, regardless of their orientation, complex and colorful backgrounds, and low-resolution text (Figure 1).

SRI's revenue protection technology has a false-positive rate of 15% and a false-negative rate of 8%. SRI's revenue protection technology is integrated into the video facing system that is being deployed nationwide. The algorithms are currently being extended to identify mail pieces with only a single two- or five-cent stamp, and will ultimately be extended to identify mail pieces with any amount of postage that is less than the minimum.