Putting a padlock on PAF
When the government announced its initiative to make national databases more open, many hoped that postcode data and UK mapping data might be included. Now though, that looks unlikely.
Geographic information systems have become increasingly important in computing. To understand how important, look at how many things you use the postcode for, look at how useful Google Maps has proved as a way of displaying data, and of course look at SatNav which has very quickly become household technology.
One of the key data resources needed to develop geography-aware applications in Britain is the database which defines all the issued postcodes along with the Ordnance Survey grid coordinates of them. This information exists and it is part of PAF, the Postal Address File containing the 30 million postal addresses in the UK, PAF is owned by the Royal Mail. It sells this data to businesses and originally it was used mostly for cleaning up mailing lists. With the internet, it can be put to more ingenious uses. You will almost certainly have seen online shops where you type in your street number and postcode into an order form and the website retrieves your full address for you, or sites which allow you to type in your postcode and it shows you all the Subway Sandwich shops in your area.
The Royal Mail sells annual subscriptions to PAF, but the steep licensing fees make it too expensive for most small businesses. However, the Royal Mail is still owned by the people of the UK and the postcode system in the UK was developed using our money, so surely it would be reasonable for the government to put this data into the public domain, as part of its Open Data initiative, and let all of Britain's businesses, large and small, benefit from this data. Unfortunately the Royal Mail is resolutely opposed to this plan, and if the government does indeed privatise the mail service (despite public opposition), having monopoly control over postcodes would be a valuable asset.
Back in November the Government was making noises that it might free up the postcode database, but earlier this week it dismissed a petition which called for such an action saying "The PAF dataset was designed and engineered by Royal Mail and is owned and managed by the company as a commercial asset of the business." The long statement added "Under Section 116 of the Postal Services Act 2000, Royal Mail must maintain the PAF and make it available to any person who wishes to use it on such terms as are reasonable." Many of us who would like to use it would argue that its terms are anything but reasonable. Neither has Royal Mail shown any initiative to deliver the product online in a way that would allow seamless low cost integration into websites.
I suspect that eventually the PAF files will be put into the public domain but with a political PR spin describing this as a benefit arising out of privatisation, a way of making privatisation of the mail seem more palatable. Meanwhile, smaller businesses which want to use geographic data will have to rely on rough approximations and incomplete files compiled by mapping enthusiasts across the UK.
28th January 2010
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.