Government plans to make postcode data free in 2010
The UK government has announced plans to give everyone free access to postcode data. At present, commercial organisations use the Postcode Address File (PAF) that ties post codes to addresses and organisations that want access to these datasets can only do so via paid, third-party services like Postcode Anywhere, Simply Postcode and Quick Address to name some of the most popular.
The move is part of the Government’s ‘Smarter Government strategy’ to utilise more technology and the web in order to transform official services. This is in addition to the recent government pledge for a further £30m cash injection to help another one million Britons get access to the internet for the first time.
Postcode look-up and address auto-fill services have become increasingly popular in recent years particularly with businesses and webmasters as they:
- allow end-users to quickly and accurately enter their full address
- ensure the address input is free from errors
- allow addresses to be completed from partial information
- make sure all addresses adhere to a standard layout enabling more accurate database filtering
- help to avoid duplicated entries in databases
From a webmaster’s perspective, this can be a crucial service especially when considering the administration of databases containing tens of thousands of customer details which includes addresses.
The postcode information is set to become free in April 2010 and will be welcomed by many businesses, especially those looking to cut expenses within the current financial climate. Up until now, the cost of third-party postcode services would be on average £50 per 1,000 address look-ups so these plans are set to save businesses hundreds if not thousands of pounds over the course of the year.
Within these plans, the government has stated it would start “consulting on making Ordnance Survey mapping and postcode datasets available for free reuse from April 2010″ and a spokesman for the Ordnance Survey said the consultation is likely to begin before Christmas.
“It’s a chance for anyone who has views on what can be given away to make those views known,” he said. ”It’s more a question of how not if,” he said. “It’s something that’s going to be happening.”
The news is in stark contrast to recent events most notably in October this year when Royal Mail took legal action against many websites that resulted in the termination of the access they had to such data. These websites that used the postcode feed included Job Centre Pro Plus, HealthWare (to locate nearby pharmacies and hospitals), PlanningAlerts.com (to monitor planning applications) and Straight Choice (to find out who sent political leaflets).
A recent BBC interview with Harry Metcalfe, the man who helped sites get at postcode data, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the decision to open up the OS data sets. He went on to say “If the right data is released in the right way, this will be a positive development”.
Overall, this change is welcomed by webmasters and will make working with address and postcode data quicker, simpler and now cheaper.