Free Our Postcodes

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2009/10/free-our-postcodes/

VoteUK is no more.  In order to precisely show you where your electoral registration office was, I needed to take its postcode and covert it to latitude and longitude.  That's the service Ernest Marples provided.

A few days ago, the Post Office - in their infinite wisdom - set their legal dogs on those running Ernest Marples.

The Post Office charges for the file that they generated which converts post codes to location.  It can cost anywhere from £1,000 to £4,000 per year to get accurate data.  That's a price that I can't afford - neither can many non-profits, startups or innovators.

"I take the position that the postcode file and the data set of physical coordinates that go with it are a national asset that should be freely available to any UK citizen"  - Tom Watson MP

The Guardian has shown that there is more economic benefit to the UK by setting this data free.

So, what can be done about it?

• Sign the petition to the Prime Minister
• Write a blog post, send a tweet, and tell your friends what’s happening!
• Call, email or fax your MP

The Royal Mail is in its death-throes. It is vital that data created and supported by public money is returned to the public before it is sold off to the highest bidder... only to be sold back to us.

#data #freeOurData #linkedData #postCodes #postOffice #postcode #RoyalMail

An example of enshittification and how badly Google has broken its core reason for existence, search: Google is using an LLM to "hallucinate" postcodes.

I dunno about other countries, but in Australia, if you get someone's postcode correct and a detail as simple as the recipient's name or nickname, a street name without the number, or the name of a home, then our postal service has a miraculously high success-rate for delivering a letter or parcel to the correct destination. You can write the wrong suburb or state in the address, but if you use the right the postcode, Australia Post delivers. But, without the correct postcode, you're up the creek without a paddle. The wrong postcode can lead to delayed delivery or can result in your mail getting the "Return to sender" treatment.

Google Search results _could_ index the database from Australia Post or pay a moderate commercial licensing fee to access their API. But, instead, Google's got an LLM to make-up postcodes. The results are near enough to appear convincing at first glance, such as using '3' for first digit of postcodes in Victoria. Then, they present it in the top position of Search results and have the cheek to use the Australia Post logo. In my experience, there appears to be a correlation between numerical similarity of Google's fictional postcodes and geographical proximity of suburbs. Google's "AI Overview" presents misleading nonsense instead of using traditional indexing or a trivial lookup table.

(More details in the Alt-text of the screenshot.)

#Google #GoogleSearch #AI #AIOverview #LLMs #Enshittification #AustraliaPost #Australia #Postcode #Zipcode

🗞️ Congrats to @OlivierSupplisson from the team for his impressive analysis of massive #HPV data (362,963 tests performed in France from 2020 to 2023) published in #Eurosurveillance.

🔎 This is analysis at the #postcode level (!) was made using hierarchical #Bayesian models.

It has implications for #screening as he shows a risk of systematic inflation of high-risk HPV infection prevalence.

Maps also show increased prevalence for #HPV16 and #HPV18 in some areas

https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2025.30.28.2400689

[14:11] Inwoners Assen maken komende zondag kans op miljoenen tijdens Miljoenenjacht

Vijftig inwoners van Assen uit postcodegebied 9402 maken zondag 9 maart kans op miljoenen tijdens jubileumseizoen van de Postcode Lotterij Miljoenenjacht.

https://dvhn.nl/drenthe/assen/Inwoners-Assen-maken-op-zondag-9-maart-kans-op-miljoenen-tijdens-Miljoenenjacht-45733840.html

#Assen #9402 #zondag #9maart #Postcode #LotterijMiljoenenjacht

[21:37] Eenmaal geluk, altijd geluk? Eastermar weer op Miljoenenjacht. 'Koffer 23, ik wist it!'

Miljoenen leverden ze Eastermar op. De vier postcodecijfers 9261 maakten het dorp in 2018 in een klap rijk met de Postcode Loterij Kanjer. In de laatste aflevering van Miljoenenjacht van het jaar beproefden prijswinnaars van toen of het geluk hen nog altijd meezit.

https://www.lc.nl/friesland/Eenmaal-geluk-altijd-geluk-Eastermar-weer-op-miljoenenjacht-29266566.html

#vier #9261 #2018 #Postcode #LoterijKanjer #Miljoenenjacht