We need to liberate the Postcode Address File • Hacker News Board

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#301

Post by sahmeepee » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:07 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #79

robinhouston wrote: post #45

This is a long-running battle. Those with long memories may remember the skirmish 15 years ago, when a small group of developer-activists set up a website that allowed free access to postcode data (ernestmarples.com, named after the inventor of the modern British postcode system). Needless to say, it was rapidly shut down following threats of legal action by Royal Mail. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct…

The postcode-to-coordinate data is now freely available as "CodePoint Open" So there's already data for people who want to know postcode AB10 1JL corresponds to the area around 57.14677,-2.09873 The PAF is a more detailed data source, as seen in https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode which can tell you that AB10 1JL specifically covers the addresses 102-104, Union Street, Aberdeen 82, Union Street, Aberdeen Timpso…

Given that OSM has a lot of building addresses and locations (at least it has building names and numbers and the streets they are on, plus their outlines) I wonder how much of the PAF could be recreated from the data in CodePoint Open combined with OSM. If adding more house numbers etc to OSM would help improve that then it could be crowdsourced quite quickly via Street-Complete or similar.

For the purposes of the quick address lookup it doesn't even need to be 100% accurate. If a property is incorrectly listed against two postcodes it won't really cause problems, so the lookup could err on the generous side

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#302

Post by sahmeepee » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:41 PM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #257

As the tenant, once, of a new build home in the UK it’s not just the file that’s important: it’s the channels to patch the file too. I spent almost a year having to enter my address manually because the postcode DB — or whatever old version pets.com, cameras.com, and looroll.com had — lagged behind the reality of my infill bungalow for seemingly forever. I’m 8 A godamnit, not 8 . (Thank you Mrs. No8 for accepting my…

I've been a consumer of the PAF for many years through work.

In the bad old days (10 years ago), when we got it from a well known credit check company, it came on CDs. We then moved to "automatic" updates via their rubbish, buggy software to our on-premise install. That wasn't such a huge upgrade, because as soon as you looked away from that software it would stop working.

Now we pay a different, altogether better company to access it via a web service. I would expect that the speed of updates through to websites is now mostly as good as the frequency of PAF releases. Unless this has changed recently, the PAF isn't created by Royal Mail itself, it's outsourced to a company called AFD based on the Isle of Man.

My only complaint with the service we get now is that the value is quite poor - our total cost is somewhere around 30p per lookup on average for addresses which I suspect are rarely even used in our line of work.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#303

Post by sahmeepee » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:48 PM UTC

kwhitefoot wrote: post #273

Why bother paying attention to all this legal mumbo-jumbo? Just have someone exfiltrate the file and post it on Anna's Archive. Or extract them from Open Street Map. Just bypass the Royal Mail altogether. Or just ignore the postcodes. For most private individuals an ordinary street address works perfectly well and is needed anyway even if the postcode is provided.

It's mostly used to get clean address data on form inputs. The user thinks they are being given an easier way to enter their address, but really it's so that the PAF can be used to ensure the address lines are used consistently and there are no typos or other rubbish. If the person has to pick their address from a list after entering the post code it's also a data input check of sorts.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#304

Post by sahmeepee » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:53 PM UTC

moring wrote: post #154

darrenf wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know the answer so I looked it up. Nominatim gets postcodes from Ordnance Survey: https://nominatim.org/release-docs/3.4/data-sources/GB-Postc... Specifically Code-Point Open: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/code-point-open which is updated quarterly, and in turn gets the postcodes from Royal Mail.

It seems to me that you can download the postcode list freely: https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/CodePointOpen Something is missing here. If OS already has that data from RM and can make it available freely, why would they need to build another database?

Because the OS data doesn't provide addresses, just locations of the postcodes in coordinate terms, so you can't provide the typical website address lookup.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#305

Post by spacebanana7 » Sun, Aug 25, 2024, 8:54 AM UTC

scott_w wrote: post #293

spacebanana7 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anything inside the UK is subject to UK law and no other law This is true in theory but not in practice. If you’ve been sanctioned by the US then you won’t by able to get a bank account in the UK. Even if you’ve not violated any UK law. The Americans can give a British bank an ultimatum between dealing in US dollars and dealing with a particular individual. Every bank will always choose the former. Similarly anythi…

The examples you gave are nothing to do with Parliament creating a law, they’re all based on individual actions. And in any case, my disclaimer already covered the bases you’re discussing: > If it has knock-on impacts in other areas, it's hard to say, but that's separate to the law. I’d hoped it was clear that I was referring to UK law but perhaps not.

It’s perhaps a difference in what we consider to be UK law. A difference between laws authored in the UK and laws enforced in the UK.

Parliament might be the de jure authority on UK law, but in practice many other bodies have the de facto power to write laws that apply in the UK.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#306

Post by fmajid » Sun, Aug 25, 2024, 9:01 AM UTC

sowbug wrote: post #208

pxeger1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail Why not? Parliament has the ability to make whatever laws it wants, no?

In the US, the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution says the government cannot take private property for public use without providing just compensation. I don't know whether any similar right exists in the UK.

The U.K. does not have a proper written constitution, nor a real bill of rights. It does have the European Convention on Human Rights, but that was passed by an Act of Parliament and can be withdrawn by another Act of Parliament, and in fact the Conservative Party keeps proposing just that.

There are no limits on parliamentary sovereignty, which is what the US Founding Fathers fixed with the US Constitution, but even that was the second attempt, after the failure of the Articles of Confederation, and the Bill of Rights came after the Constitution itself, which is why it is formed of amendments.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#307

Post by fmajid » Sun, Aug 25, 2024, 9:03 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #178

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't it be taken for free? The system and data was created by a publicly owned body, surely Crown copyright.

I have no idea what UK law is. In the US the data itself is public domain, but the compilation is of data is copyright. Maps commonly would intentionally have errors in to detect copying - the error is creative work and so a copyright violation to copy so if someone copies your map you can sue them for copyright violation for not just the errors but also that compilation. If you take someone else's map and then use t…

Nope: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications%2C_Inc.%2C_....

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#308

Post by ascorbic » Sun, Aug 25, 2024, 12:16 PM UTC

qingcharles wrote: post #279

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't it be taken for free? The system and data was created by a publicly owned body, surely Crown copyright.

If only Crown Copyright worked like the US system where the output of the government was generally considered public in almost all cases. I just checked the status of OS maps copyright and it looks like a Dumpster fire: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/governance/crown-copyright

Yes, it would be nice. There is at least now a presumption in favour of releasing everything under an open licence, but OS maps are one of the exceptions.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#309

Post by scott_w » Sun, Aug 25, 2024, 1:32 PM UTC

spacebanana7 wrote: post #305

scott_w wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The examples you gave are nothing to do with Parliament creating a law, they’re all based on individual actions. And in any case, my disclaimer already covered the bases you’re discussing: > If it has knock-on impacts in other areas, it's hard to say, but that's separate to the law. I’d hoped it was clear that I was referring to UK law but perhaps not.

It’s perhaps a difference in what we consider to be UK law. A difference between laws authored in the UK and laws enforced in the UK. Parliament might be the de jure authority on UK law, but in practice many other bodies have the de facto power to write laws that apply in the UK.

You’re overthinking the issue. The laws not authored but enforced in the U.K. are done so with the express authority of Parliament. Treaty ratification is literally “passing an Act of Parliament that implements the treaty in U.K. law.” Parliament can also delegate legislation authority to other bodies. It can also revoke that authority (within the U.K.) either in part or in full.

This has actually happened on multiple occasions: Brexit being one that removed European institutions’ right to set rules that the U.K. must comply with. It’s also an example of where this isn’t free: the government agreed to a bunch of rules right back because cutting ourselves off from Europe would have obliterated the economy.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#310

Post by Wizzah » Sun, Aug 25, 2024, 2:34 PM UTC

gabesullice wrote: post #55

cuonic wrote: post #10

On the other side of the Channel, the French government has managed to create the "BAN" (Base Adresse Nationale - National Address Database), a database of detailed postal addresses in the country along with precise GPS coordinates: https://adresse.data.gouv.fr/base-adresse-nationale On top of the database they have provided an interface to view the data, interfaces for towns and cities to keep the data up-to-date, f…

A cautionary example of how data meets reality… My address in France is listed in the BAN… but only to the granularity of my street number (e.g., 123 Main St.). Unfortunately, that number corresponds to at least 7 different structures, 5 of which are apartment buildings. Of those 5 buildings, each has multiple stairwells with their own door and no line of communication between them—they might as well be separate buil…

Belgium is a shitshow of governments (We have 7) but somehow one of these got to achieve a geolocated address register. Publicly available and they also have an API available to build your own application around.

https://www.vlaanderen.be/datavindplaats/catalogus/adressenr...