MINNEAPOLIS — The holiday shopping season is here! But with the presents delivered to your doorstep comes the risk of porch pirates stealing them away.
UPS is hoping to change that.
"We know that this has been a growing concern for our customers," said Archita Prasad, vice president of strategy and innovation at UPS Capital.
Prasad says UPS is now teaming up with artificial intelligence to try and reduce delivery theft at your doorstep. The tool is called DeliveryDefense.
"An advanced analytical tool that uses machine learning and billions of data points from UPS delivery network," Prasad said.
The information helps assign your address with a "delivery confidence score," which ranges from 0 to 1,000.
A score of 1,000 means there's a high chance of your package getting delivered. An example would be if you live in an apartment complex that has a secure mailroom with a lockbox.
A zero means your package risks getting lost or stolen at your address. For example, if you live in an apartment complex that lacks safeguards like a mailroom or lockbox.
Prasad said those scores give merchants a choice.
"If the score is high, they can continue to ship the package as is, and if the score has a lower confidence number, they can opt to reroute it to UPS access points," she said.
There are more than 9,000 Access Points in the United States, including at CVS and Michaels stores. UPS access points have a delivery confidence score of about 950.
For residential customers, a UPS spokesperson said you can create a free UPS My Choice account. With an account, you'll get an email or a text telling you the package is going to be delivered. If you’re not home to receive it, you can send a message to the driver to have that package delivered to an access point.
"Generally speaking, it's within three to five miles of where they live. And the nice thing with access points is they're open late," said Andrew Norsten, an operations manager at UPS.
Leaders said that so far, DeliveryDefense is producing promising results, which is good news. Getting your holiday presents stolen by a Grinch would not be a great way to start the season.
"It really adds and enhances our ability to provide unmatched service around the Twin Cities, around the state, and actually around the domestic U.S.," Norsten said.
Leaders said one thing they added this year to enhance DeliveryDefense is having drivers take photos of your package being delivered.
WATCH MORE ON KARE 11+
Download the free KARE 11+ app for Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV and other smart TV platforms to watch more from KARE 11 anytime! The KARE 11+ app includes live streams of all of KARE 11's newscasts. You'll also find on-demand replays of newscasts; the latest from KARE 11 Investigates, Breaking the News and the Land of 10,000 Stories; exclusive programs like Verify and HeartThreads; and Minnesota sports talk from our partners at Locked On Minnesota.
- Add KARE 11+ on Roku here or by searching for KARE 11 in the Roku Channel Store.
- Add KARE 11+ on Fire TV here or by searching for KARE 11 in the Amazon App Store.
- Learn more about the KARE 11+ app for Apple TV in the Apple App Store.
- Learn more about KARE 11+ here.
Watch more local news:
Watch the latest local news from the Twin Cities and across Minnesota in our YouTube playlist: