Will the Post Office and Ordnance Survey ever agree about house names?
Part of the reason the previous post was late arriving was because I moved house last week. It went successfully, but here’s an annoyance. In the last house, we changed the name (we didn’t like the old one) – notifying the local council, which accepted the name and put it into its records. Clearly, the council notified the Post Office, which accepted the name… except that it changed the ending of the name, which was “House”, to “Cottage”.
Now, in no way was our house a cottage. It was a two-storey semi-detached early 1900s building. Clearly, the misnaming was one of those intentional errors that any database compiler puts in so that it can spot people stealing its data (for there’s no copyright in facts, but there is copyright in fiction, so if you add some false data to a database…)
And now our new home has a name, which differs from the Post Office’s name, which differs too from the OS’s name.
I can understand that they want to have proprietary ownership of their data, but really, this is ridiculous. The upshot is that when we call people to tell them our new address, if they’re an organisation using the Postcode Address File (PAF), they only want the first line of the address and the postcode. But when you tell them the property name and the postcode, there’s a pause while they try to figure out whether you’re right or they’re right.
It’s an annoyance, though it’s indicative too of the absurd lengths that the organisations have to go to in order to “protect” their precious data. At the cost of creating hassle for the rest of us..
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- Reorganising this blog: different category suggestions (19 June 2009; score: 35.41%)
- In the Guardian: one-off census address database cost rises 20% to 12m pounds (9 March 2009; score: 29.72%)
- Royal Mail threat likely to close ernestmarples.org (5 October 2009; score: 29.64%)
- International expert fun rumbles on (10 November 2009; score: 28.61%)
- |In Thursday's Guardian: want to know where post offices are? Sorry, we can't (or won't) tell yoyu (13 October 2007; score: 23.5%)
July 11th, 2006 at 8:18 am
I think a bit of “woo woo” conspiracy theory going on here.
Having worked in SNN and seen many similar mistakes, it may simply be that your LA sent wrong details to the RM head office or they entered it correctly.
If you go back to your LA and insist they tell RM that it is wrong, it will be sorted, honest.
aCM
July 11th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Charles,
It could just as simple as there being another house with the same name in the area. Then again you may be right. the PO may have one set of house names for publication and another that is the definitive and accurate.
BTW why did you not copyright your house name (and address) and make it a trademark, it would be interesting to see how the OS and PO would react to this ;)
July 11th, 2006 at 10:00 am
I’m quite sure there wasn’t another house with the same name in either area – I live very rurally, and the names are, I promise, unique. If anything, calling something a cottage rather than a house would ambiguate it, rather than disambiguating.
I doubt that the LA sent the wrong details – why would they, since their computer system merrily sends council tax bills to the right address? Plus why would you tell the LA – why not tell the RM? (I think I may have, and that it was ignored, but it’s five years ago now.)
Trademarking.. copyrighting.. can’t trademark something that’s not used for trade. Copyright, now, that’s more interesting. Though we’d like to keep getting our post delivered…
July 11th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Charles,
Is this the Da Vinci code of address data :-) ?
I really suggest this is a case of cock-up rather than conspiracy.. The OS address database comes from the original Royal Mail data but adds a more accurate geocode, so as soon as it is corrected there then it will also be correct in the OS Address products.
As aCM notes the first step is to ask your local authority to inform them of the error, the local authority is responsible for the official naming/numbering of properties and the Royal Mail will only change address details as there are informed by them… and yes that does mean there are at least three address databases !
ed
July 12th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Charles
“I doubt that the LA sent the wrong details – why would they, since their computer system merrily sends council tax bills to the right address?”
Sorry, but it is quite sweet that you think that your Local Authority has joined up its street name and numbering, LLPG and Council Tax.
Until very recently SNN was a “forgoten” function, often part time and caried out in total isolation (and still is in many LAs).
The concept that they should tell Council Tax, ER, Housing etc that a place has changed would be far too ambitious.
E-mail me with you LA and I’ll try and find your LLPG custodian’s direct e-mail address, who should be able to check what they really have and be able to get it all sorted.
aCM
July 12th, 2006 at 8:27 am
“(for there’s no copyright in facts, but there is copyright in fiction, so if you add some false data to a database…)�
Charles, you seem to suggest that in order for a database to acquire copyright protection, you need to put in false data. Completely incorrect. It is a well established principle in copyright law that compilations of known facts can attract copyright where a sufficient degree of skill and effort has been used in compiling that data.
The only reason one might add false data would be to assist in proving a case of copyright infringement. It has absolutely no relevance to the issue of attracting copyright.
July 12th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
“Clearly, the misnaming was one of those intentional errors that any database compiler puts in so that it can spot people stealing its data”
How is this ‘clear’? Naturally, this has either happened intentionally or unintentionally. Looking at this logically, the most likely cause would be unintentional given that most inaccuracies in any dataset are caused uninentionally. I am not saying you are incorrect in your assertion, however, to enter into a worthwhile debate, you must at least acknowledge that there are other possibilities that exist. Lacking this acknowledgement will make supporters of your views unaware of the alternatives and critics dismissive (”woo woo conspiracy”, “Da Vinci Code”).
July 12th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
“Clearly, the misnaming was one of those intentional errors that any database compiler puts in so that it can spot people stealing its data�
There is the case of Ordnance Survey entering false data into its large scale mapping in order to prove that the AA were borrowing information for their own copyrighted mapping.
However why would Royal Mail need to prove any ownership of address data. They already have a monopoly on the sale of this data and copyright on apparently any address based database in the UK, despite being offered this information free of charge by local authorities who are then charged to use it.
July 13th, 2006 at 7:10 am
[...] As Ed Parsons (chief technology officer of Ordnance Survey) noted on this blog, the flaws mean that there are three databases in operation – the RM PAF, the OS’s address layer, and the National Land and Property Gazetteer (I think that’s right on the latter). [...]
July 13th, 2006 at 10:07 am
For the purposes of copyright law, false facts are still legally facts and fall under the same criteria as other facts (depending on the jurisdiction copyright may attach to the form in which the facts are presented, but not to the facts themselves).