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National Postcodes to be introduced

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    #2342
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    The deal may be done and the design set in concrete. However that does not say it is workable and will be used widely.

    Will AnPost abandon their scanning/geodirectory in favour of the few letters that will use the Eircode?
    Will the general public use it?
    Will Garmin and TomTom incorprate it into their satnavs?
    How many courier companies will use it?

    If it fails to catch on, will it be redesigned to be workable?

    Remember the awful traffic direction signs around Dublin that Minister Brennan (RIP) cancelled as they were being put up. This could get a simillar fate (if Rabbitte has the balls to do it, and he has yet to demonstrate such things).

    The powers that be have made a mess of this proposed system. It would be harder to design a less intelligent coding system if there was a competition!

    -- it is non standard in its structure - mail sorting and online address entry are international functions that rely on standardisation to work efficiently

    --The use of alphabetic letters reduces machine readability and increases human error risk, and make it unreadable to somebody who does not speak a language that uses Roman characters. Just like 愛爾蘭 won't mean much to most people in this forum.

    -- The randomisation of the last four characters makes it unsuitable for delivery routing purposes.

    -- It overlaps with codes used in other countries (eg Germany). Many mechanised systems are programmed to do a best match, which can often lead to an item being processed based on its initial characters.

    -- The use of the code after the town name will reduce its machine recognition by perhaps 30%. The norm is to place the code at the start of a line before the name of the town. There is no need then to include province or county or canton names. The biggest problem with the British postcode was for the scanning systems to identify the code (an alphanumeric jumble somewhere in the address space). Large numbers of extra staff have to be deployed to manually read address labels etc to transcribe the code.

    -- While a most householders will be able to remember their codes, it will be far more difficult to remember the Eircodes of your friends and business contacts etc.

    -- It is a police state code being foisted on the public and business interests, under the guise of a postcode. There are no data protection measures in place to prevent the code being hovered up by the spying agencies of foreign governments, or for other abuses.


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    #2343
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    ozmo wrote: »
    Pinpointing an address with a postcode is an accident waiting to happen.

    2ic6yog.png

    Low resolution codes (eg 4 or 5 digit) allow the insurer (and similar) to quote for business, knowing roughly where you live, Dublin 4 or The Bronx. But they can't find out what street and house you live in, unless you are comfortable disclosing same, after kicking the tyres. Data thieves can't wait for the Eircode, I suspect.


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    #2344
    TheBustedFlush
    Registered Users Posts: 254 ✭✭TheBustedFlush


    Elmo wrote: »

    My issue is not with the introduction of Postcodes but it is with the money spent on promoting such codes. Can you honestly give me a good reason for such spend?

    What are you referring to - what spend?


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    #2345
    TheBustedFlush
    Registered Users Posts: 254 ✭✭TheBustedFlush


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    The deal may be done and the design set in concrete. However that does not say it is workable and will be used widely.

    True. It has to be promoted and sold to get it to be used widely.
    Will AnPost abandon their scanning/geodirectory in favour of the few letters that will use the Eircode?
    They've already said publicly they're going to spend a million euros on amending/updating their software in their systems to use it. The few letters that will include it would be all state correspondence, financial institutions, insurance, phone companies, etc. That's a lot of mail right there.
    Will the general public use it?
    That's up to the general public I suppose. If everyone gets one sent to them, and then they are subsequently asked for it by someone - company, service, online, visitor, etc - are they going to refuse to give it out?
    Will Garmin and TomTom incorprate it into their satnavs?
    If it gives them a commercial advantage, why wouldn't they? If it doesn't, why would they? That's business.
    How many courier companies will use it?
    See above.
    If it fails to catch on, will it be redesigned to be workable?
    Depends on how you measure "catch on" and what period of time you use - it took ten years in some countries.


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    #2346
    TheBustedFlush
    Registered Users Posts: 254 ✭✭TheBustedFlush


    ozmo wrote: »
    Pinpointing an address with a postcode is an accident waiting to happen.

    2ic6yog.png

    If you went to this website, and it asked you for your Eircode, would you provide it or would you use a false one?


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    #2347
    Elmo
    Registered Users Posts: 23,641 ✭✭✭✭Elmo


    TheBustedFlush wrote: »
    If you went to this website, and it asked you for your Eircode, would you provide it or would you use a false one?

    I just want an estimate :)


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    #2348
    Elmo
    Registered Users Posts: 23,641 ✭✭✭✭Elmo


    TheBustedFlush wrote: »
    True. It has to be promoted and sold to get it to be used widely.

    So we should employ a group of marketers and a group of consutlants to come up with a name.

    Consultant 1: How about we call it YourPlace
    Marketer 1: Sounds like a pick up line
    Consultant 2: Make it MyPlace so
    Consultants and Marketers all laugh wildly... the rest of this dialogue is the script to the Wolf of WallStreet with Pat Rabbitte and Mary Kennedy taking on the lead role
    Eventually someone else suggests
    Eire Postcode
    And some one else uninspiring goes
    EIRCODE.

    Should have done marketing in college.


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    #2349
    TheBustedFlush
    Registered Users Posts: 254 ✭✭TheBustedFlush


    Elmo wrote: »
    I just want an estimate :)

    Exactly - so give them a false one.


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    #2350
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,993 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    ..A simple addition of a check digit would bring the total code to 8....You should tell Capita about this invention of yours.
    It could be called loc-8-lite ? :D
    Leonard Shelby wrote: »
    ... time to move along. If there were real design flaws then the stakeholders consulted would have raised concerns...
    We are the public, and we are stakeholders, and we are raising concerns.

    If you mean the consultants, they are the ones selling it to the govt. so why would they raise concerns?
    Impetus wrote: »
    While a hidden code (for administrative and business use) can be standardised for each building, there is no need for it to be mixed up with a postcode, because this would be un-necessary repetition - ie tautological. Keep the public postcode simple as is the case in most countries..
    But this has gone way beyond a postcode. It was Minister Eamonn Ryan who moved it on, back in his day, with the requirement for a "unique identifier" for each address. Since the advent of property tax and water meters, that is even more of a priority. Nowadays Minister Rabbitte does not even call it a "postcode" at all; he was calling it a "letterbox code" up until they came up with the name "eircode" recently.


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    #2351
    TheBustedFlush
    Registered Users Posts: 254 ✭✭TheBustedFlush


    recedite wrote: »
    But this has gone way beyond a postcode. It was Minister Eamonn Ryan who moved it on, back in his day, with the requirement for a "unique identifier" for each address. Since the advent of property tax and water meters, that is even more of a priority. Nowadays Minister Rabbitte does not even call it a "postcode" at all; he was calling it a "letterbox code" up until they came up with the name "eircode" recently.

    Nail on the head - it's now called a location code.


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    #2352
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    TheBustedFlush wrote: »
    If you went to this website, and it asked you for your Eircode, would you provide it or would you use a false one?

    You can't make up a false code due to the random nature of the code. eg you might randomly hit on an unused code. Or you might hit on the code of another customer of that insurance co - whose name would be apparent to the system. Aside from the uberrimae fidei clause that applies to virtually all insurance contracts (ie if you give false information, your insurance claim can be basically ignored - the ultimate escape clause for an insurer).

    If the code was zone based (eg 1004 or 10400 = Dublin 4, or 10400 = Merrion Road and maybe a few streets off same and 10401 = Herbert Park or Anglesea road etc) you would have no reason to fake the code, while the insurer would be given a good idea of the type of area from a risk point of view for car or home insurance. It would be equally useful for statistics gathering.

    D04 2VKM provides zero additional useful information to people with honest intentions and your data privacy in mind. The only other country to go down this route was Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran. I doubt if they had peoples' best interests at heart.


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    #2353
    TheBustedFlush
    Registered Users Posts: 254 ✭✭TheBustedFlush


    Impetus wrote: »
    You can't make up a false code due to the random nature of the code. eg you might randomly hit on an unused code. Or you might hit on the code of another customer of that insurance co - whose name would be apparent to the system. Aside from the uberrimae fidei clause that applies to virtually all insurance contracts (ie if you give false information, your insurance claim can be basically ignored - the ultimate escape clause for an insurer).

    If the code was zone based (eg 1004 or 10400 = Dublin 4, or 10400 = Merrion Road and maybe a few streets off same and 10401 = Herbert Park or Anglesea road etc) you would have no reason to fake the code, while the insurer would be given a good idea of the type of area from a risk point of view for car or home insurance. It would be equally useful for statistics gathering.

    D04 2VKM provides zero additional useful information to people with honest intentions and your data privacy in mind. The only other country to go down this route was Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran. I doubt if they had peoples' best interests at heart.

    If you're just looking for an estimate then it doesn't really matter. If you're going to formally sign up for an insurance policy, then you'll be providing a lot more than your postcode - ever seen an insurance form and the questions they ask you? Or any other form for that matter.

    Besides, why would you want to give insurers more reason to breakdown areas and discriminate against people for insurance? Small zones and groupings encourage this kind of profiling and discriminatory tactics that aren't particularly accurate and lump people into one kind or other of demographic grouping to justify charging people more for services. I don't put them into the "people with honest intentions and your data privacy in mind" bracket - they're looking for ways to make money. So if makes their life more difficult, I'm all for it.


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    #2354
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    TheBustedFlush wrote: »
    If you're just looking for an estimate then it doesn't really matter. If you're going to formally sign up for an insurance policy, then you'll be providing a lot more than your postcode - ever seen an insurance form and the questions they ask you? Or any other form for that matter.

    The quote is useless if you succeed in giving false information (eg location). Because you would have to supply fuller information if you signed up, and it could show you up in a bad light - as in credit scoring systems. Telling lies etc. You might call it a typo. (You mis-typed D04 G2HJ when you really meant D24 U9JX). Likely? I know someone who collects credit cards for a hobby in GB. All his cards debt is paid off on the nail. But he can't get any more cards or credit, because the scoring systems most banks in GB use look out for people who keep applying for multiple credit cards - presumably on the assumption that they are credit unworthy.

    It is another version of postcode blight - yet another British problem largely driven by their postcode, which is far more invasive then most other European postcode systems. It affects people buying insurance, applying for jobs, looking for credit, whatever.


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    #2355
    TheBustedFlush
    Registered Users Posts: 254 ✭✭TheBustedFlush


    Impetus wrote: »
    The quote is useless if you succeed in giving false information (eg location). Because you would have to supply fuller information if you signed up, and it could show you up in a bad light - as in credit scoring systems. Telling lies etc. You might call it a typo. (You mis-typed D04 G2HJ when you really meant D24 U9JX). Likely? I know someone who collects credit cards for a hobby in GB. All his cards debt is paid off on the nail. But he can't get any more cards or credit, because the scoring systems most banks in GB use look out for people who keep applying for multiple credit cards - presumably on the assumption that they are credit unworthy.

    It is another version of postcode blight - yet another British problem largely driven by their postcode, which is far more invasive then most other European postcode systems. It affects people buying insurance, applying for jobs, looking for credit, whatever.

    The point was if you were looking for an estimate, then you give a dud one.

    If you're applying for a formal quote, then you will be asked for more than just your postcode - go look at any of the reputable insurance providers in the UK and see what info they want you to provide online before they give you a quote.


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    #2356
    ozmo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,863 ✭✭✭ozmo


    TheBustedFlush wrote: »
    The point was ...you give a dud (postcode).


    Very security wise of you- but is that a piece of advice Capita should handout on a flier to all Ireland residents with the postcodes-
    ..to give out false postcodes to those you dont trust 100%...?!

    Or have them heed the Data Commissioners advice to fix the code maybe so people can use it online like any other country (except Iran aparently)?

    “Roll it back”



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    #2357
    TheBustedFlush
    Registered Users Posts: 254 ✭✭TheBustedFlush


    ozmo wrote: »
    Very security wise of you- but is that a piece of advice Capita should handout on a flier to all Ireland residents with the postcodes-
    ..to give out false postcodes to those you dont trust 100%...?!

    Or have them heed the Data Commissioners advice to fix the code maybe so people can use it online like any other country (except Iran aparently)?

    Ozmo - that was a piece of advice for the specific visual posted earlier with a mock-up of a fake website inviting people to give their postcode to someone who wanted to steal cars. I presume you didn't think it was for real.

    People provide their postcode and address details online every day. It's nothing new or earth-shattering. The first thing that Aviva look for to get a quote for car insurance is your name, date of birth, and the first line of your address and email address and phone number.


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    #2358
    Leonard Shelby
    Closed Accounts Posts: 138 ✭✭Leonard Shelby


    Impetus wrote: »
    -- it is non standard in its structure - mail sorting and online address entry are international functions that rely on standardisation to work efficiently
    Eircode is better. It doesn't need addresses to change in order to work.
    --The use of alphabetic letters reduces machine readability and increases human error risk, and make it unreadable to somebody who does not speak a language that uses Roman characters. Just like 愛爾蘭 won't mean much to most people in this forum.

    Seems to function perfectly well in the UK, a more culturally diverse country than Ireland and I don't remember seeing any protests there.
    -- The randomisation of the last four characters makes it unsuitable for delivery routing purposes.
    Eircode is more suitable for delivery routing than any clustered postcode as it provides exact building coordinates.
    -- It overlaps with codes used in other countries (eg Germany). Many mechanised systems are programmed to do a best match, which can often lead to an item being processed based on its initial characters.
    That is why you write the country name at the bottom of an address when posting from abroad. That is the standard.
    -- The use of the code after the town name will reduce its machine recognition by perhaps 30%. The norm is to place the code at the start of a line before the name of the town. There is no need then to include province or county or canton names. The biggest problem with the British postcode was for the scanning systems to identify the code (an alphanumeric jumble somewhere in the address space). Large numbers of extra staff have to be deployed to manually read address labels etc to transcribe the code.
    There you go trying to change everyone's address again as if that wouldn't open a can of worms. Ever been to a GAA match? We like our County affiliations. The UK postcode is placed at the end of the address, scanning errors due to placement are a figment of your imagination.
    -- While a most householders will be able to remember their codes, it will be far more difficult to remember the Eircodes of your friends and business contacts etc.
    The only time you would need to do that is when writing their full address. Do you remember all of those? Or maybe you have them written down or saved on your PC or phone. Save the postcode with it.
    -- It is a police state code being foisted on the public and business interests, under the guise of a postcode. There are no data protection measures in place to prevent the code being hovered up by the spying agencies of foreign governments, or for other abuses.
    I'm sure Jim Corr would agree with you on that.


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    #2359
    Victor
    Registered Users Posts: 78,352 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    Posts about electrical sockets moved here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057214511

    That thread for electrical plugs only.

    This thread for post codes only.

    Moderator


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    #2360
    Splinter
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 3,331 ✭✭✭Splinter


    Impetus wrote: »
    If the code is properly designed and used it will (increase the probability of rapid delivery). Varying numbers of postal packets fail machine recognition in Ireland because the address on the envelope/label can't be machine read. This forces them back to the end of the queue for manual analysis. In the case of post, there are four mechanized sorting offices in Ireland and trucks leave every night at a cut-off point to take the mail to one of the other four sorting centres. If the item has not been manually analyzed and pointed to the correct destination sorting centre by the cut-off point, it must typically wait until the next day.

    Digits, be they machine printed or even hand written are far more machine readable. Even if the full address scan fails, chances are a four or five digit postcode at the start of a line will be machine readable and this allows the item to move to the next sorting office on the route. An image of the address label can be read by someone at a VDU - even while the truck containing the item is on the road, and the correct destination put into the delivery record.

    The barcode on the envelope/package (eg DHL whatever) is a serial number for that package. The person at the intervention VDU can cause that serial number to be refined in terms of its destination, and when it hits a barcode reader in the next sorting office, it will be put in the correct delivery slot. Most postal administrations in Europe use this system and send the full address and barcode number of items in transit (eg to Ireland from another country) even before the plane carrying the item lands. So when they arrive in IRL the address does not need to be scanned and deciphered. It has been done once in the country of origin, and is past on to the delivery country.

    Stuff sent by eg DHL on Monday in NJ should be delivered in IRL on Wednesday. The USPS is like a curates egg. On the continent, stuff posted on Monday is delivered on Tuesday within the same country and in some bordering areas of neighbouring states. Otherwise it is delivered in Wednesday (J+2).

    I can't speak for other carriers except DHL. The way the system currently works for Postcode countries is at a high level, a country and postcode(or city combination) return a 3 letter unique code and a 3 letter facility within that area. For example, London could be LHR LON (the second half can modify for each area in London). It can then break this down further internally where individual groups of postcodes then have an additional code that can be referenced for more precise routing.

    This can be done for Postcodes accurately or cities with less accuracy, (for example, Dublin as a city would be less accurate than Abbey Street, the same would go for using Dubai, or a precise street).

    UPS from what i believe use a similar system


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    #2361
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    We still haven't seen the structure of this system.

    It could be very useful, or totally useless.

    The concern I think you're going to have from a data protection point of view will be very similar to to the telephone directory.

    People will probably want to ensure that there's an ability to be 'ex directory' in terms of being looked up by name. As, otherwise you'd have risk of reverse look ups and all that stuff.


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    #2362
    Elmo
    Registered Users Posts: 23,641 ✭✭✭✭Elmo


    SpaceTime wrote: »
    We still haven't seen the structure of this system.

    It could be very useful, or totally useless.

    The concern I think you're going to have from a data protection point of view will be very similar to to the telephone directory.

    People will probably want to ensure that there's an ability to be 'ex directory' in terms of being looked up by name. As, otherwise you'd have risk of reverse look ups and all that stuff.

    Isn't there a book that details owners of houses, I know I saw one in an office a few years back.


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    #2363
    Splinter
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 3,331 ✭✭✭Splinter


    Elmo wrote: »
    Isn't there a book that details owners of houses, I know I saw one in an office a few years back.
    don't mean this to sound like i'm being cheeky, http://www.eircomphonebook.ie/ ? I remember phonebooks having full address information, not sure if that's still the case?


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    #2364
    Elmo
    Registered Users Posts: 23,641 ✭✭✭✭Elmo


    Splinter wrote: »
    don't mean this to sound like i'm being cheeky, http://www.eircomphonebook.ie/ ? I remember phonebooks having full address information, not sure if that's still the case?

    Yeah but the strange think about this is the Directory Enquiries won't give you out someone's address due to data protection, I used to say if the person pick up a phone book they would have the address so why not give it out?

    But there is another hard back book with a red cover, not alphabetical but by street and number.


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    #2365
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    The phonebook hasn't changed, just thanks to telemarketers driving people nuts a huge % of the population dropped out of it.

    A lot of people also don't use landlines that much anymore, at least not as a primary point of contact, so the phone book is very thin these days especially in the residential section.

    But, in general there's a lot of publicly available information about many people out there. You'd be surprised. I was certainly shocked at how easy it is to pick up a copy of my own birth cert with relatively little checking of who I was for example.


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    #2366
    Elmo
    Registered Users Posts: 23,641 ✭✭✭✭Elmo


    I know we're going off topic on Data protection

    Some that really annoies me

    A Bank/Insurance company rings you and asks you to confirm who you are :confused: yet they tell you not to give personal details out over the phone.


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    #2367
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    Elmo wrote: »
    I know we're going off topic on Data protection

    Some that really annoies me

    A Bank/Insurance company rings you and asks you to confirm who you are :confused: yet they tell you not to give personal details out over the phone.

    Quite OT, but in general the only way to stop that is to hang up the phone and refuse to speak to them and ring their number yourself. I will not give *anyone* my details over the phone like that if they call me. There are too many psychological scams going on.

    The issue with these codes will be more of a data protection thing if there's a database that's available commercially and gives people's names as well as addresses.
    You can easily get everyone's addresses already by just using Google maps, even house names are listed in most cases.

    Also, in most cases if someone's got the first line of your address and county it can be looked up very quickly and effectively on a lot of databases or even on Google maps.


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    #2368
    TheBustedFlush
    Registered Users Posts: 254 ✭✭TheBustedFlush


    Elmo wrote: »
    Yeah but the strange think about this is the Directory Enquiries won't give you out someone's address due to data protection, I used to say if the person pick up a phone book they would have the address so why not give it out?

    But there is another hard back book with a red cover, not alphabetical but by street and number.

    SpaceTime wrote: »
    The issue with these codes will be more of a data protection thing if there's a database that's available commercially and gives people's names as well as addresses.
    You can easily get everyone's addresses already by just using Google maps, even house names are listed in most cases.

    Also, in most cases if someone's got the first line of your address and county it can be looked up very quickly and effectively on a lot of databases or even on Google maps.

    Eircom phonebook has names, addresses, phone numbers and even provides a useful map function for showing where places are.

    Golden Pages has names, addresses and maps of listings.

    Google has business and residential listings, addresses, and locations.

    eircode not allowed have names - only addresses and codes.

    Thom's Directory I think. More of an historical reference directory than a modern comprehensive one.


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    #2369
    Elmo
    Registered Users Posts: 23,641 ✭✭✭✭Elmo


    TheBustedFlush wrote: »
    Thom's Directory I think. More of an historical reference directory than a modern comprehensive one.

    Version I saw was from 06


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    #2370
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,548 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Last published in Nov 2013. Costs €110 +vat on CD. thoms.ie

    Edit: CRO says it is on strike off.
    Type Company
    Number 224411
    Name THOM'S PUBLICATIONS LIMITED
    Address 7 CLANWILLIAM TERRACE
    DUBLIN 2

    Registered 10/11/1994
    Status Strike Off Listed

    Effective Date 27/04/2014
    Last AR Date 30/09/2012
    Next AR Date 30/03/2013
    Last Accounts to Date 31/12/2010


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    #2371
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,548 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Thom's Directory is related to the old Irish Press.

    Irish Press Media is at the same address as Thom's.

    Type Company Number306705
    Name IRISH PRESS MEDIA
    Address 7 CLANWILLIAM TERRACE
    DUBLIN 2

    Registered14/05/1999StatusStrike Off Listed

    Effective Date 20/04/2014
    Last AR Date 19/09/2012
    Next AR Date 19/03/2013
    Last Accounts to Date 31/12/2010


This discussion has been closed.
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