OpenIDFreeing the postcode
UK postcodes have some interesting characteristics: a full six character post code identifies an average of around 14 house holds, and postcodes are mainly hierarchical—W1W will always be contained within W1 for example. They’re useful for a huge range of interesting things.
The problem is that the postcode database (of nearly 1.8 million postcodes) is owned by the Royal Mail and licensed at a not inconsiderable fee of between £150 and £9,000 per year.
Free the postcode was set up a while ago to try to remedy this situation, by asking people to enter their postcode along with the latitude/longitude coordinates collected from a GPS. Having people enter coordinates from online mapping services is no good as EU database law may see that as a derivative work. It’s had some success, but the GPS requirement has seriously stunted its growth.
Then a few weeks ago, npemap.org.uk launched. It’s an interface for browsing scans of out-of-copyright maps from the 1950s (credits at the bottom of the FAQ). The site asks people to enter post codes based on that old mapping data, which can then be placed in the public domain.
If you haven’t already done so, you should go and add any postcodes that you know about now. It takes no time at all, and is especially important if you live in one of the 230 districts for which no data has yet been collected.
You can grab the data they’ve already collected from here. There’s a really cool interactive visualisation of their data here, based on previous work by Chris Lightfoot using the commercially licensed postcode database.
Gareth Simpson - 17th November 2006 18:40 - #
Simon Willison - 17th November 2006 20:26 - #
This sort of thing ought to rankle any public servant. It's absurd that only some of the bits and bytes of public works are free enough to be actually used by the citizens.
Jeremy Dunck - 18th November 2006 20:28 - #
It'd be great to see Australia Post's databases open up too. While Australian postcodes are only four digits, each and every Australian postal address has a ten-digit delivery point id (dpid) in Australia Post's database. The dpids can then be matched back (via lands department data) to physical locations.
Australia Post's ddress page.
Alan Green - 20th November 2006 05:56 - #
Espen Antonsen - 20th November 2006 08:43 - #
Tim Almond - 20th November 2006 15:03 - #
Epsen:
The USPS provides a ZIP code lookup service for free but one must pay for a copy of the complete database. Note that while publications of the US government are ineligible for copyright protection under US law, the USPS is not a government agency but a government-owned corporation, so it can hold copyrights. (Prior to 1971 we had a Post Office Department, which was part of the executive branch like the defense department or state department ... the postmaster general was even in the line of succession for the presidency! But in 1972 the post office department was replaced by the United States Postal Service, which)
The US Census Bureau uses ZIP codes internally for compiling statistics. They make their ZIP code databases available, but be warned that they are not necessarily up-to-date.
There are a number of third party databases available commercially. Code322 has some handy free lookup services, in addition to selling databases.
The Wikipedia articles on the USPS and ZIP codes are surprisingly interesting.
Tim Buchheim - 21st November 2006 01:14 - #
Having recently had to create a system to map postcodes to locations on a map, I think efforts like this to create a free postcode database should be applauded.
The idea of using 50-year old maps to avoid copyright is a very good one, though I think residents of Milton Keynes might find it a bit hard to locate their house with any accuracy!
Xiven - 21st November 2006 12:52 - #
rjh - 25th November 2006 20:30 - #
It's CRAZY to pay for a license of a public thing, that must belong to the citizens.
More questions, why that "very_strange_ever_confussing" British Postcodes ? if other countries could manage their letters with 5 or 6 "only_numbers" postcode.
...These are some of the funny (not so funny) legacy of the British Post system
Any effort to change that for an "open" and "simple" system are welcomed
Peter Atkinson - 29th November 2006 00:43 - #
AFAIK, it takes 9 digits for US postal to get the resolution that a Brit postal code has. The world is a big place. Lots of places in it, too.
Jeremy Dunck - 1st December 2006 06:20 - #