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We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk

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Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#61

Post by jstanley »

b112 wrote: post #29
tomstuart wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the joke.

If I call some place I've never heard of before, know nothing about, my first interaction with them on the phone shouldn't result in "Oh my god, these people seem like scammy used car salespeople!" If your assertion is true, that it's a joke, it's going to backfire. That's because that call is the equivalent of what's happening here. I called, and the person on the other end ... thinking it a joke, funny, did their b…

It pattern-matched "scam" so you classified it as "scam" and absolved yourself of doing any further thinking.

If something pattern-matches "legit" are you equally blase about sticking with your snap judgment and absolving yourself of doing any further thinking?

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#62

Post by Digit-Al »

b112 wrote: post #29
tomstuart wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the joke.

If I call some place I've never heard of before, know nothing about, my first interaction with them on the phone shouldn't result in "Oh my god, these people seem like scammy used car salespeople!" If your assertion is true, that it's a joke, it's going to backfire. That's because that call is the equivalent of what's happening here. I called, and the person on the other end ... thinking it a joke, funny, did their b…

It hardly requires a huge amount of investigation to see that's not a scam link. It literally has the blog authors name attached to it, along with a post date and a "read the full story"link that has the same web address as the blog. It's just a few seconds work to see it's legit.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#63

Post by xnorswap »

pjc50 wrote: post #40
xnorswap wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lookup between postcode and address, what is the abuse cases you're worried about?

Crucially, it doesn't have people's names in it.

Indeed.

If it's an issue that someone would know your address, then it's an issue that they would know your postcode.

If it's an issue that someone would know your postcode, then it's an issue that they would know your address.

I'm struggling to think of a scenario where you'd be fine with someone knowing one of those pieces of information without knowing the other.

It's not therefore an issue that there's a lookup between the two. Indeed you can do it trivially with google maps, or the plenty of other services that expose this database through their operation.

Any safety concerns aren't at the layer of translation between postcode and address, they're how someone tied either of those pieces of information to a given person.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#64

Post by chgs »

maccard wrote: post #54

At least the Uk has the the defence that postcodes are 60 years old and that the legacy cruft that comes with that is part of life. Meanwhile Ireland introduced Éircodes less than 10 years ago, chose an opaque format that uses a central database that you have to pay for access to for anything more than a handful of lookups, only covers homes (so you can’t give an eircode of a park, or a walk). It’s pretty much what y…

I’d expect a modern government to design something as clear and well regarded as the GDS stuff in the U.K.

I’d expect a corporation like ibm etc to design the total mess we see with any large project

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#66

Post by tomsmeding »

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…

That sounds like chaos. Who thought constructing multiple apartment buildings without any kind of sensible post code or address was a good idea? Sure, this being reality BAN does not apparently meet reality, but it does sound like someone had the opportunity to keep reality sane here, and they didn't.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#67

Post by shakna »

tim-- wrote: post #17
shakna wrote: post #4

Australia also has ours locked away privately. You can purchase access, but... You also need to sign a contract that you won't make the PDF, or anything you derive from it, publicly accessible. (At least, that was the case the ladt time I did). [0] https://auspost.com.au/business/marketing-and-communications...

Isn't this G-NAF? https://geoscape.com.au/solutions/g-naf/

Not quite. G-NAF is a government owned enterprise, separate to the privitised but government body of Australia Post.

G-NAF is the equivalent to the UK's National Address Gazette.

It's a separate body of data, that sometimes disagrees with the "source of truth" that is Australia Post, and all the post systems that rely upon them.

For example, it took two years for G-NAF to notice that Winter Valley, Victoria, is not within 3356, but actually has its own brand new post code of 3358.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#68

Post by gabesullice »

tomsmeding wrote: post #66
gabesullice wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That sounds like chaos. Who thought constructing multiple apartment buildings without any kind of sensible post code or address was a good idea? Sure, this being reality BAN does not apparently meet reality, but it does sound like someone had the opportunity to keep reality sane here, and they didn't.

Agreed. This is a pretty typical case though, not a fluke. God bless the french postal workers. Don't invest in any drone delivery services here any time soon :P

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#69

Post by NeoTar »

wiredfool wrote: post #56

Essentially the same deal in Ireland, with Eircodes. They were originally created as private dataset with ownership, and now you have to license access to it to use it. Eircodes are better than postcodes, in that there's 1 per building/address/apartment, however they're discontinuous, so adjacent buildings will have distinctly different eircodes. The article highlighted the difficulty of shopping centers and apartmen…

I was impressed when I first heard about the objectives of the Eircode system, but it seems the implementation is lacking.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#70

Post by askvictor »

Our company started operating in the UK recently, and some of our customers were very surprised we didn't charge for a subscription for part of our product. The idea would have no legs in Australia (our homeland) but is completely normal in the UK. So, new revenue stream for us, and some learnings about the UK culture.
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