National Postcodes to be introduced

Bray Head

recedite wrote: »

If the code itself is personal data, I don't see how they would be allowed to sell the database, for any price, without getting individual permissions from everybody on it.

How is an eircode personal data? It is a string of alpha-numeric text which is linked to an address. You can already buy this list of addresses. It's just a list of dwellings and has nothing to do with the people who live in them. As someone pithier than me put it earlier on the thread "Think of an eircode as a shorter version of your address".

It's only linking of an eircode to your name, dob, etc that generates data protection issues. And the current restrictions on sharing of address data linked to people's names won't change with the arrival of eircode.

I live in an urban area with somewhat haphazard house numbering and slightly confusing street naming. There are 5 different mis-spellings of the address that I've come across. All sorts of deliveries and personal visits cause confusion. I am quite looking forward to getting my eircode next year and putting an end to this.

yuloni

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my3cents

yuloni wrote: »

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I think he is perfectly serious, I know that in the UK there are definitely postcode areas that are considered undesirable. Your insurance in the UK varies by postcode as does health care the schools your kids can go to and even what police station will respond to call.

The term postcode lottery has even developed its own meaning in the UK.

clewbays

National Ambulance Service is looking forward to the implementation of eircodes.

Sean Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) 5th November 2014
To ask the Minister for Health if his attention has been drawn to the concerns expressed by the Irish Fire and Emergency Services in respect of the introduction of post codes in spring 2015; the discussions he has had with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in respect of same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42352/14]

Leo Varadkar (Minister Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport; Dublin West Fine Gael)
The National Ambulance Service (NAS) is currently engaged in a process of modernising and reconfiguring its services. This is to ensure that pre-hospital emergency care is delivered in an appropriate and timely manner. This process includes using modern technology to improve service delivery. Any developments which enable the NAS to respond more quickly to patients in emergency situations are to be welcomed.

The new postal codes will assist in directing emergency resources to patients. Where the caller is in an area with a new postal code, the code will be entered into the Computer-Aided Dispatch system and the dispatcher will then activate the nearest available ambulance resource to the patient. Where no code is available - for example, in areas such as mountains, open land or beaches - the NAS will, as currently, establish the location from the caller and dispatch the nearest resource.

As postal address codes will provide definitive information on the location of a patient, this will assist in the deployment of emergency responses. The NAS therefore looks forward to the implementation of these codes.

Previous posters said the Health Sector was not going to use them so this must be a turnabout. Looks like they could save lives.

yuloni

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ukoda

yuloni wrote: »

FYP

There's no statement from the public sector NAS showing their support for eircode

So what. They are a state body. They will use it.

Because if they don't / can't take an eircode from a person in an emergency situation and a life is lost due to not being able to find the address. There will be public outcry and they will be hauled up in front of a hearing to explain themselves.

yuloni

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ukoda

yuloni wrote: »

Besides, according to yourself, postcodes have no place in an emergency situation... them being too cumbersome and all that :rolleyes:

No according to me loc8 have no place in an emergency as they are awkward, cumbersome, require a 3rd party app to be installed and are not user friendly

What I've said is that for 'home emergencies' eircode will be useful for the emergency services but ultimately a system like E112 is the best solution to cover all emergencies

It just goes to show you're not really paying attention to what I'm saying

yuloni

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ukoda

I agree any code works at home if the person knows it, doesn't matter if it's loc8 or eircode

I'm just saying that loc8 does not "come into its own" when you leave the house

No one has the app (apart from fanboys)
No one uses the app (apart from fanboys)
No one will download it in an emergency
No one will pre download it in case they may have a future emergency

And if you want to see a really 'neat' app, go download the AA app and see what they can do with it

You allow it access your location when you download it and in an emergency breakdown you press the 'call' button and the call centre gets your location, oh and you know the beauty of it?! No code needed! None! It's totally not needed! Now itsnt that neat?!

I really wish you could see how backward loc8 is when you look at what can actually be done without it

Here it is


Loc8 is an unnecessary "middle man" that wastes people's time having to generate it and call it back to someone over the phone

yuloni

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ukoda

yuloni wrote: »

Christ... here we go, same old from yourself

Listen, if Loc8 became the national location code, AS I'VE STATED BEFORE, the app could be re-worked to offer direct call and discreet location feedback to the ES. Currently, the ES have no such system to accept data-channel back. Eircode will never work in this situation as that beautiful thing called on-the-fly code generation will not be possible

Finally, must you keep quoting your un-sourced "low usage" figures as possible points of failure in the context of a national coding system. It just looks rather stupid

Why don't ES just develop an app like the AA and modernise themselves to not need loc8 on the fly generation. Oh wait they will... When the EU makes it compulsory

You're just blind to anything that doesnt have loc8 at its heart

You're trying to push it as a solution that's not at all necessary

Same old from myself?? Pot and kettle situation here I think

yuloni

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Bray Head

yuloni wrote: »

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Absolutely I am serious. I am not talking about Loc8 per se but a postcode system which is quite granular at the local level. London has a postcodes which are essentially arbitrary. Estate agents will tell you that SW12 is preferable to N4, etc. I appreciate the technical arguments but I don't think this is a desirable property of a system being introduced from scratch.

yuloni wrote: »

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I agree with you, largely. Use of the existing Dublin postal districts makes the code two digits longer than it needs to be. You could make the point that it will build ownership of the codes for the 20% of the population covered by Dublin postal districts already. I'm not convinced though. Eircodes will look very different and in any case Dublin postal districts are not known or used perfectly as it stands.

And for the record, passions of snobbery are things I can only ever detect in other people;-)

Bray Head

yuloni wrote: »

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Here's how it usually works.

TD asks a PQ relating to an agency. Civil servant drafts response and runs it by the agency. Agency adjusts so that it is consistent with their view. Civil servant submits PQ to minister with the supporting information that it has been cleared by the agency. PQ is cleared and answered.

I would be incredibly surprised if the content of this PQ is at odds with NAS senior management's view on this topic.

my3cents

yuloni wrote: »

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Do you have any usage figures for Loc8 I've yet to find anyone that knows what a Loc8 code looks like most can work out from the name it has something to do with location but thats as far as it goes.

recedite

Bray Head wrote: »

How is an eircode personal data? It is a string of alpha-numeric text which is linked to an address. You can already buy this list of addresses.

It is arguable whether an address by itself is personal data or not. The list of addresses on geodirectory could I suppose be considered personal data if all the addresses were unique, but they aren't.
Eircode does have this extra component of the unique identifier added to the written address.
Anyway its not what you or I think that counts, its what the data commissioner determines.

yuloni

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Bray Head

recedite wrote: »

It is arguable whether an address by itself is personal data or not. The list of addresses on geodirectory could I suppose be considered personal data if all the addresses were unique, but they aren't.
Eircode does have this extra component of the unique identifier added to the written address.
Anyway its not what you or I think that counts, its what the data commissioner determines.

Is a list of car registrations and the associated models personal data? No it is not. It is just a list of cars and codes. This is what the eircode database will look like. A list of dwellings and codes. Nothing to do with people at all!

It is only when you associate cars or dwellings with the person that drives or lives in them that it becomes 'personal'. The clue is in the first six letters;-)

Granted eircode will make it much easier to manage a customer list of names and addresses than at present as by using eircodes you will be able to eliminate a lot of error. This will also make it more interesting for people who want to abuse this type of list. Firms will have to be more careful. But the arrival of eircode does not fundamentally change any principle of personal data protection that organisations large and small have to abide by already.

antoinolachtnai

The problem, I suppose, is that you can't give a partial code - you have to give the whole code -, as opposed to an address, where you can opt to only give part of the address.

This is unique in the world. There's never been a code like this. So we can't say with any certainty at all what the privacy impact of this code will be.

One problem is with the likes of targeted ads. In practice, data protection law doesn't have much impact on ad networks. If the ad network gets your code (if you type it into a form somewhere to get a shipping quotation or quotation for other service, for instance, and the code is passed on) , it means that the targeting can be done to a far greater degree than ever before. Your browsing is effectively no longer anonymous.

This could easily be avoided by having a 'privacy by design' approach, using a structured code, the same as most countries in the world. Other countries have high levels of granularity (precision) but don't have the same problem because the code is structured. (I am thinking of the US, Netherlands and Singapore.)

Bray Head

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The problem, I suppose, is that you can't give a partial code - you have to give the whole code -, as opposed to an address, where you can opt to only give part of the address.

This is unique in the world. There's never been a code like this. So we can't say with any certainty at all what the privacy impact of this code will be.

I am not so sure about these claims. Take the fictional Avenue de Bruxelles in Belgium. It is ten kilometres long, has 956 dwellings and passes through three postal districts.

Take the full address, complete with postal district.

Avenue de Bruxelles 924
1060
Belgium

Can you omit part of this address and still have it useful in any way? I don't think so. Leaving out the street number will mean nothing will ever arrive in your letterbox. It's not much use to anyone else either as the street is so long it doesn't say much about you.
Omitting everything but the postal district leaves very little information either as 99,999 other people live in it.

My point is that countries with unique address systems don't necessarily allow for addresses to be split into parts as you are suggesting.

I appreciate the technical arguments in favour of more granularity and they are convincing. On balance I feel they are outweighed (and only just) by the need to not generate postcode-based snobbery. The data protection arguments don't wash with me tbh. Eircode is simply a neater address system than the one we already have and the data protection issues are nothing new.

antoinolachtnai

I'm not talking about splitting addresses, so much as only giving a postcode (or part of a postcode) to give a general idea about where you are living, but without specifying the exact unit you are living in. So for example if you wanted to check if a particular takeaway restaurant served the address above, you'd only have to type in 1060.

(Not able to find that street in Google Maps by the way.)

If you want to have a delivery, for sure, you have to be precise, and whether you do that through the code (as with eircode or the NL or SG system) or through the street address (as in Brussels) makes no particular odds. You are disclosing something that can identify you personally either way.

Does that make sense?

Enduro

Bray Head wrote: »

I appreciate the technical arguments in favour of more granularity and they are convincing. On balance I feel they are outweighed (and only just) by the need to not generate postcode-based snobbery.

Do you not realise that the reason we have Eircode in its current format is precisely to preserve postcode snobbery. Way back in the process a (FF) minister took a political decision that the Dublin postcodes had to be preserved as part of any new postcode system. That's why we have ended up with this cakhanded system. It's a lot of work to make a useful postcode whilst preserving a near useless ancient protocol.

I think you'd be very nieve to think that the reason for this decision was anything other than the fear the electoral impact of postcode snobbery. The fear of a real life Ross O'Carrol Kelly style "preserve D4" campaign was the motivation. There is even a historical precedent for that with the whole "D6W" stupidity.

Bray Head

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I'm not talking about splitting addresses, so much as only giving a postcode (or part of a postcode) to give a general idea about where you are living, but without specifying the exact unit you are living in. So for example if you wanted to check if a particular takeaway restaurant served the address above, you'd only have to type in 1060.

(Not able to find that street in Google Maps by the way.)

If you want to have a delivery, for sure, you have to be precise, and whether you do that through the code (as with eircode or the NL or SG system) or through the street address (as in Brussels) makes no particular odds. You are disclosing something that can identify you personally either way.

Does that make sense?

You won't find it on google maps because, as I said, it's a fictional address I made up to illustrate the point! One Belgian postal district has a population of 166,000 - that's a larger population than most takeaways would serve! Codes like 1060 are essentially routing keys to sorting offices, nothing more.

You claimed that eircode provides a level of specificity that has never been seen anywhere else in the world. I am saying that conventional address systems in a country like Belgium are also unique and non-separable in nature, just like eircode.

What you are suggesting is that eircode should have an intermediate layer that would identify the general area, a bit like UK postcodes. My own view is that postcode-based snobbery would very quickly follow and that this is not a desirable feature of the system.

The other point is that computing power is very cheap and that firms that want to offer location-based services will be very easily able to do so without layers. CSO small areas are included in the eircode database and firms will be very easily able to see whether the address is inside or outside the area they want to serve.

As I've said before, the facility of being able to divulge a part of a postcode would be understood by very few and used by even less.

antoinolachtnai

There may well be a postcode in Belgium that has a population of 166,000. There are a lot of postcodes in Belgium though, about 1000 by my quick reckoning, so this is exceptional. Can you tell us what postcode this is, and what its approximate area is?

I never claimed that eircode provided a level of specificity that has never been seen anywhere else in the world. What is unique is the idea that the second part of the postcode for each building is completely different from the postcode of the neighbouring buildings.

US residents and Dutch people use partial postcodes every day of the week.

I cannot see how postcode snobbery is a very important topic for the day-to-day activities of delivering services. Areas might get redlined, but using the lookup technology you refer to, it is easy to use the eircode to red-line an area (and so decide not to serve it).

On the other hand, being able to look at an address and from the address determine where the dwelling is actually located seems like a very important thing to be able to do. The Dutch and Singaporean systems allow this, but the eircode does not.

It has to be added that because of the structure of Irish addresses, particularly postal addresses, it is currently extremely difficult to figure out from an address where that house is actually located just by looking at the address. For example, houses in Monkstown have postal addresses in Dun Laoghaire or Glenegeary. There are non-unique streets even within Dublin postal zones. Country addresses are even more confusing.

For sure you'll be able to look things up online. But it would make a lot more sense if you could just look at the address including the postcode and a reasonably experienced delivery driver would have a fair idea where a house is located. (As you can in nearly every other country.)

Bray Head

Enduro wrote: »

Do you not realise that the reason we have Eircode in its current format is precisely to preserve postcode snobbery. Way back in the process a (FF) minister took a political decision that the Dublin postcodes had to be preserved as part of any new postcode system. That's why we have ended up with this cakhanded system. It's a lot of work to make a useful postcode whilst preserving a near useless ancient protocol.

I think you'd be very nieve to think that the reason for this decision was anything other than the fear the electoral impact of postcode snobbery. The fear of a real life Ross O'Carrol Kelly style "preserve D4" campaign was the motivation. There is even a historical precedent for that with the whole "D6W" stupidity.

I do not support the retention of the Dublin postcodes as the first three digits of Dublin eircodes, see previous posts on the topic.

You seem to be arguing that postcode snobbery is a bad thing (I agree) but advocating a system that would allow for even more of it than at present!

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

There may well be a postcode in Belgium that has a population of 166,000. There are a lot of postcodes in Belgium though, about 1000 by my quick reckoning, so this is exceptional. Can you tell us what postcode this is, and what its approximate area is?

The postal area (1000) is for the city of Brussels which is 33km2.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I cannot see how postcode snobbery is a very important topic for the day-to-day activities of delivering services.

The postcode system will have a multiplicity of purposes of which delivering parcels is only one. Greater granularity and/or sequential postcodes would be irrelevant to many users in mapping or for firms managing customer lists.

There are also valid social policy objectives in the construction of eircodes, such as respect for Irish-language format placenames and the need to not create more postcode snobbery than already exists. My own view is that a lot of posters here are very technologically literate on the topic but fail to see the wider social context.

a65b2cd

The main use of Eircodes is going to be to deliver post hence Dublin postal districts and national postal towns are the routing part. This is also why a database solution is required as the text address is a fundamental part of delivering post. If only one use location codes were needed then LOC8, GoCodes, and OpenPostCodes already meet that requirement.

I guess for delivering pizza the guys will ask you your name as well as your Eircode and then confirm the address in the database with you. Similarly if you are wondering if they deliver pizzas to your area you can always just give your locality e.g. Stillorgan and preserve your anonymity in case they want to deliver you a complimentary one.

Sam Russell

The main use of Eircodes is going to be to deliver junk mail, and collect taxes.

ukoda

Sam Russell wrote: »

The main use of Eircodes is going to be to deliver junk mail, and collect taxes.

Look, marketng companies use very sophisticated targeting tools these days, they have thier campaign planning and distribution nailed. They don't need eircode. They may use eircode to make their process faster. But it's in no way going to open up a Pandora's box of stuff for them. I get lots of junk through my door now so they manage to target me just fine without eircode

How exactly will it help collecting taxes? Can you explain what revenue will now do differently and what will be improved by eircode? Could you actually outline how? Instead of just claiming it?

tvc15

ukoda wrote: »

Look, marketng companies use very sophisticated targeting tools these days, they have thier campaign planning and distribution nailed. They don't need eircode. They may use eircode to make their process faster. But it's in no way going to open up a Pandora's box of stuff for them. I get lots of junk through my door now so they manage to target me just fine without eircode

How exactly will it help collecting taxes? Can you explain what revenue will now do differently and what will be improved by eircode? Could you actually outline how? Instead of just claiming it?

You seem to be forgetting he doesn't really care, he only wants Eircode to fail. Associating Eircode with Irish water, property tax, evoting, stealth taxes, ISIS, junk mail and Fred West etc. is all fine. What matters is that the casual Irish person sees this as the government trying to screw over the population! We should all rise up and demand the closed source, privately owned panacea that is loc8