National Postcodes to be introduced

hognef

ukoda wrote: »

People keep saying things like "a computer in their pocket" like its some sort of futuristic thing that will never happen.

Ireland has 70% "computer in pocket" (I.e. Smartphone) penetration. And this is growing rapidly.

The reality is most people do have a computer in thier pocket and almost everyone will in another few years.

And of course nobody needs to be able to add, subtract or spell, nor learn history, geography, etc., because we all have a calculator, predictive texting, Google Maps and Wikipedia in our pockets?

ukoda

hognef wrote: »

And of course nobody needs to be able to add, subtract or spell, nor learn history, geography, etc., because we all have a calculator, predictive texting, Google Maps and Wikipedia in our pockets?

Nobody learns navigation in school. Don't make dumb comparisons. I'm talking about being able to use technology to navigate easily to addresses, im merely making the point that technology is available in most people's pockets, why wouldn't we take advantage of it and build something to capitalise on this scenario.

Suggesting that we should stop educating people because we can now use a phone to find a house is spurious reasoning.

ukoda

ukoda wrote: »

Nobody learns navigation in school. Don't make dumb comparisons. I'm talking about being able to use technology to navigate easily to addresses, im merely making the point that technology is available in most people's pockets, why wouldn't we take advantage of it and build something to capitalise on this scenario.

Suggesting that we should stop educating people because we can now use a phone to find a house is spurious reasoning.

Did you never do geography? Basic map reading is an essential part of the subject.

Anyway, if you don't have the tech on hand, you'll be doing it the old fashioned way and asking a (hopefully) knowledgeable stranger for directions, postcode or no postcode.

ukoda

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Did you never do geography? Basic map reading is an essential part of the subject.

Anyway, if you don't have the tech on hand, you'll be doing it the old fashioned way and asking a (hopefully) knowledgeable stranger for directions, postcode or no postcode.

I don't remember geography lessons including getting from house A to house B. I remember fjords and meanders alright. But not optimal route planning for deliveries or journeys.
What you're talking about is orienteering I believe not really part of the geography curriculum

ukoda

ukoda wrote: »

I don't remember geography lessons including getting from house A to house B. I remember fjords and meanders alright. But not optimal route planning for deliveries or journeys.

Primary school stuff, chances are you simply don't remember it.

SPDUB

ukoda wrote: »

It's fully the fault of An Post for allowing this mess.
But again, no reason here to bash eircode, like I said, it's a huge improvement that solves a lot of problems and will help a lot of people in their day to day lives.

Really you say don't bash eircode but bash An Post for an issue I've said numerous times that they have no control over namely the naming of roads , houses etc and that the fact that they are legally obliged to deliver to an address if they can find it eg the postman knowing where "lovelyshack villa" is

ukoda

SPDUB wrote: »

Really you say don't bash eircode but bash An Post for an issue I've said numerous times that they have no control over namely the naming of roads , houses etc and that the fact that they are legally obliged to deliver to an address if they can find it eg the postman knowing where "lovelyshack villa" is

Fair enough, it's the governments fault, apologies to An Post.

hognef

ukoda wrote: »

im merely making the point that technology is available in most people's pockets, why wouldn't we take advantage of it and build something to capitalise on this scenario.

My point is that, even though we have calculators, it's still useful to be able to add or subtract manually. Likewise, even though we have satnavs and electronic maps, it's also useful to be able to navigate manually. Using eircode as the solution to non-unique addresses does nothing for manual navigation.

plodder

GJG wrote: »

We don't need to speculate what will happen, because already in Ireland - the north - every address has a unique identifier - a combination of the street number and the postcode. Every address has a street number, and a postcode, and no two addresses that share a postcode can ever share a street number; anyone with database experience will know that the difference between using one and two fields as a primary key is trivial.

So negative predictions about what will happen with Eircode aren't really credible unless they can already be seen to be happening in the north.

It's not as simple as that. Yes, you can make a unique identifier in the UK by adding a house number to a postcode, but that's not equivalent to the scenario I've been talking about at least.

The question is around the treatment of postcodes on their own, and the fact that an Irish postcode will be a unique identifier, unlike any other country's.

Let's take an example. I was looking at the site change.org recently. They allow you to set up online petitions and opinion polls for free, and are funded by selling some of the information that they receive. They are a reputable business and have a privacy policy that seems reasonable.

Included in the information they collect is:

We also collect information that does not reveal your specific identity, or does not directly relate to you, such as:

browser and device information
information collected through cookies, pixel tags, and other technologies
demographic information and other non-identifying information provided by you (such as a postal code or general geographic area)

Oops! Well actually Eircodes do potentially relate to my identity...

Well, what about consent then? change.org has a reasonable policy so they only share personal information like email addresses and phone numbers if you consent to it. That's fine.

But remember, from above, they don't necessarily know that Irish postcodes are actually personal information.

In the section of the privacy policy relating to how they use your information they say:

We may use and share aggregated and anonymized information to better understand and serve our users or for optimization of our marketing and ad targeting efforts. For example, we may compile statistics like the percentage of our users in a state or country who care about animal rights, or the age range of those users.

So, they could be compiling statistics about the number of people at a particular postcode who care about animal rights (for example), since this normally represents aggregated and anonymized information and the question of individual consent doesn't apply.

We are depending on sites like this, knowing that Eircodes are personal information and shouldn't be treated the same as postcodes from other countries, where they aren't personal information. Otherwise, personal information is going to leak out, that the people supplying it haven't consented to.

a65b2cd

plodder wrote: »

change.org has a reasonable policy so they only share personal information like email addresses and phone numbers if you consent to it

Interesting point Plodder ... p.s. when I went to join change.org they only asked for name and email address so how would they publish my Eircode? Your example cites them as possibly interested in publishing data at State or country level.

Eircode will have all sorts of beneficial uses e.g. I can put it on my cat's tag in case she gets lost and farmers can use it for their sheep!

plodder

a65b2cd wrote: »

Interesting point Plodder ... p.s. when I went to join change.org they only asked for name and email address so how would they publish my Eircode? Your example cites them as possibly interested in publishing data at State or country level.

I was quoting their actual privacy policy. So, that was their words, not mine. But, you're right that the site allows you to vote on particular issues by only providing that information. But, you can also create an account, where they do ask for postcode.

Eircode will have all sorts of beneficial uses e.g. I can put it on my cat's tag in case she gets lost and farmers can use it for their sheep!

I agree

SpaceTime

ukoda wrote: »

Fair enough, it's the governments fault, apologies to An Post.

Bear in mind that until 1984 An Post WAS the A government department : The Dept of Post & Telegraphs.
So for much of the history of the state the postal service was essentially politically run by a minister.

GJG

plodder wrote: »

It's not as simple as that. Yes, you can make a unique identifier in the UK by adding a house number to a postcode, but that's not equivalent to the scenario I've been talking about at least.

The question is around the treatment of postcodes on their own, and the fact that an Irish postcode will be a unique identifier, unlike any other country's.

Well, that may be your question, and fair enough, but many catastrophic scenarios are predicted here simply if it is possible to ever uniquely identify somebody's home. They don't address the blindingly obvious point that 60 per cent of addresses in RoI are already unique, and 100 per cent of addresses in NI are both unique and machine-readably unique, and their doomsday scenarios, supposedly dependent on only being able to uniquely identify a house, haven't happened there yet.

plodder wrote: »

Let's take an example. I was looking at the site change.org recently. They allow you to set up online petitions and opinion polls for free, and are funded by selling some of the information that they receive. They are a reputable business and have a privacy policy that seems reasonable.

...

We are depending on sites like this, knowing that Eircodes are personal information and shouldn't be treated the same as postcodes from other countries, where they aren't personal information. Otherwise, personal information is going to leak out, that the people supplying it haven't consented to.

That's a really good point.

I don't really accept that it is an issue that doesn't arise at all in, say, the UK where house number plus postcode gives that unique identification; Change.org may not get it all, but every delivery-based website and most other ecommerce ones get, along with a lot of high-value buying habits information.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that it is a really relevant point. It is exactly the sort of thing that the Data Protection Commissioner should have been up to his/her elbows in from the start of this project. It could have been, for example, instead of four random characters, two then two, with the first area representing an atomic area and the second two being truly random.

You could then have rules around giving, storing and selling the last two characters. Or they could do it with the current format with a one-way lookup from Eircode to atomic area and only storing the latter for statistical use. Or perhaps some other protocol, it's the DPC's job, not mine.

I spoke to the then DPC about this years ago (Bertie appointee, 'nuff said), and the attitude was that the idea of using postcodes to make addresses unique should simply be abandoned. It didn't take too much reading between the lines to understand that the motivation was purely to avoid doing any work.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

It's not as simple as that. Yes, you can make a unique identifier in the UK by adding a house number to a postcode, but that's not equivalent to the scenario I've been talking about at least.

The question is around the treatment of postcodes on their own, and the fact that an Irish postcode will be a unique identifier, unlike any other country's.

Let's take an example. I was looking at the site change.org recently. They allow you to set up online petitions and opinion polls for free, and are funded by selling some of the information that they receive. They are a reputable business and have a privacy policy that seems reasonable.

Included in the information they collect is:

Oops! Well actually Eircodes do potentially relate to my identity...

Well, what about consent then? change.org has a reasonable policy so they only share personal information like email addresses and phone numbers if you consent to it. That's fine.

But remember, from above, they don't necessarily know that Irish postcodes are actually personal information.

In the section of the privacy policy relating to how they use your information they say:


So, they could be compiling statistics about the number of people at a particular postcode who care about animal rights (for example), since this normally represents aggregated and anonymized information and the question of individual consent doesn't apply.

We are depending on sites like this, knowing that Eircodes are personal information and shouldn't be treated the same as postcodes from other countries, where they aren't personal information. Otherwise, personal information is going to leak out, that the people supplying it haven't consented to.

Selectively quoting sections of their website to suit your argument, here's the very first paragraph of their privacy statement


"Through these activities and upon your general use of our platform, we may collect and/or receive thefollowing information about you that reveals your specific identity, or is directly tied to your specific identity:

your name
your postal address
your telephone number
your email address, or non-email authentication if you are using a mobile device
your profile picture
other information you voluntarily submit (for example: photos)
your unique mobile device ID number if you access our services via a mobile application
your social media account ID and information shared with us via your social media account
your specific activities on the Change.org platform - for example, petitions you have started or signed, sponsored petitions you have signed, or campaigns you have shared or promoted

Sam Russell

There is a definite problem with Eircode with respect to privacy.

No amount of claiming otherwise negates that fact. It is one of the elements of bad design it displays. There are many more. Why have we settled for such a poor design?

antoinolachtnai

GJG wrote: »

You could then have rules around giving, storing and selling the last two characters. Or they could do it with the current format with a one-way lookup from Eircode to atomic area and only storing the latter for statistical use. Or perhaps some other protocol, it's the DPC's job, not mine.

This is a core point. If the current proposed format is retained, and a website or organization wants to store only the general area of a customer's location, rather than the specific information about their house, that organization or website will need to have access to the Eircode database.

Having access to the cheap, cut-down version of the eircode database won't do either. The website or organization will have to have access to the full price version.

oscarBravo

Sam Russell wrote: »

There is a definite problem with Eircode with respect to privacy.

No amount of claiming otherwise negates that fact. It is one of the elements of bad design it displays. There are many more. Why have we settled for such a poor design?

Because the alternative was to opt for one that couldn't be implemented.

I have to laugh at the number of people here who have blithely suggested that we should have simply changed at least a third of the addresses in the country - as if that would ever happen.

If we're not being constrained by minor details like whether there's a snowball's chance in hell of ever implementing it, I'm sure I could come up with any number of wonderful systems.

antoinolachtnai

oscarBravo wrote: »

Because the alternative was to opt for one that couldn't be implemented.

There is nothing particularly difficult about implementing a system that numbers the small areas within counties and where necessary, number roads and later houses.

There is no real evidence yet that the eircode proposal is actually implementable to any great degree of accuracy.

For the cost of eircode, including the licensing GeoDirectory and the end cost of delivering eircodes accurately to non-unique addresses, every street and building in the country could have been re-surveyed from scratch.

ukoda

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

and a website or organization wants to store only the general area of a customer's location, rather than the specific information about their house, that organization or website will need to have access to the Eircode database

Why? They just ask that customer for whatever details they want to retain for that customer and store them, they don't need to go near the eircode database

oscarBravo

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

There is nothing particularly difficult about implementing a system that numbers the small areas within counties and where necessary, number roads and later houses.

Seriously?

You're arguing that it's impossible to implement a system where every house is given a single additional code, all the while claiming that we can number areas (what's a small area? how do you number them?), number roads (what, like L-numbers?) and then number houses.

So, basically, your case is that it would be easier to tell people that their address is "25, L10255, Area 63, Co. Mayo" than to give them an eircode to use along with the address they've been using for possibly decades?

Sam Russell

If a system of unique addresses were to be implemented for those areas that currently do not have it, the first thing is to make a start. Areas that are within urban areas that are generally have unique addresses, then any house that has a name but no number just gets a house number - no silly vanity names.

For areas that have townland addresses, then those townlands need to be signed as per roads, and if there is only one road, that road is named after the townland. At least that is a start.

We need a body responsible for official addresses.

oscarBravo

Sam Russell wrote: »

If a system of unique addresses were to be implemented for those areas that currently do not have it, the first thing is to make a start.

...and, in thirty years' time, when we still don't have 100% unique addresses, at least we'll have made a start, and at least whatever personal issues you happen to have with eircodes won't exist.

Look: I get that people have issues with the design of these codes. But arguing that we shouldn't have them, and instead should have something that isn't going to happen, is just silly.

Yes, we should have unique addresses in this country. There are a lot of things we should have, but we're a perverse little race of people, and there's no point trying to pretend we're not. The reason we're getting eircodes instead of proper unique addresses is that the people who have issues with eircodes are outnumbered by several orders of magnitude by the people who would refuse point-blank to use any address other than the one that they've been using for the last fifty years, thank you very much.

Sam Russell

The point I am trying to make - well two points really - is:

1. A better postcode system with a hierarchical structure would move us closer to having a unique address,

2. We need to start making moves towards unique addresses now where we can. It should be a matter of pride for us - not another 'twill do' attitude.

a65b2cd

From the Oireachtas Committee meeting November 2014:

"One of the principal tenets set by the Department in selecting a code is that people should not have to change their current address. This is related to the Chairman's point about sense of place and attachment to place. The Dublin postal districts are viewed by residents living in those areas as part of their current addresses. To attempt to change or remove Dublin 4 would be the equivalent of taking away the name of a town for people who live in provincial Ireland. It does no violence to people's current addresses and it is carried into the code as designed."

An advantage of Eircodes should be that people living in a county, different to the county where the sorting office is located, should now be able to write their county of location as the Eircode will tell An Post where the sorting office is located.

Australia tried a pilot of numbering and naming houses and roads and had immense difficulty getting any community agreement on the proposed changes.

Sam Russell

a65b2cd wrote: »

From the Oireachtas Committee meeting November 2014:

"One of the principal tenets set by the Department in selecting a code is that people should not have to change their current address. This is related to the Chairman's point about sense of place and attachment to place. The Dublin postal districts are viewed by residents living in those areas as part of their current addresses. To attempt to change or remove Dublin 4 would be the equivalent of taking away the name of a town for people who live in provincial Ireland. It does no violence to people's current addresses and it is carried into the code as designed."

An advantage of Eircodes should be that people living in a county, different to the county where the sorting office is located, should now be able to write their county of location as the Eircode will tell An Post where the sorting office is located.

Australia tried a pilot of numbering and naming houses and roads and had immense difficulty getting any community agreement on the proposed changes.

Is this the same Oireachtas that approved eVoting and Irish Water?

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

Selectively quoting sections of their website to suit your argument,

here's the very first paragraph of their privacy statement


"Through these activities and upon your general use of our platform, we may collect and/or receive thefollowing information about you that reveals your specific identity, or is directly tied to your specific identity:

your name
your postal address
your telephone number
your email address, or non-email authentication if you are using a mobile device
your profile picture
other information you voluntarily submit (for example: photos)
your unique mobile device ID number if you access our services via a mobile application
your social media account ID and information shared with us via your social media account
your specific activities on the Change.org platform - for example, petitions you have started or signed, sponsored petitions you have signed, or campaigns you have shared or promoted

Yes, they do collect personally identifying information, but because they know it is personally identifying then they know they have to protect it. That is the point I am making.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

Yes, they do collect personally identifying information, but because they know it is personally identifying then they know they have to protect it. That is the point I am making.

My address isn't personally sensitive, it's publicly available, it only becomes personal when combined with with my other data in a database, say change.org, everyone will be aware in Ireland that eircode = full address, so they have a choice to give it or not.

a65b2cd

Sam Russell wrote: »

Is this the same Oireachtas that approved eVoting and Irish Water?

What is your solution to losses of 50% of treated water supply between the plant and the tap - is it to continue with 34 Local Authorities?

antoinolachtnai

oscarBravo wrote: »

Seriously?

You're arguing that it's impossible to implement a system where every house is given a single additional code, all the while claiming that we can number areas (what's a small area? how do you number them?)

It is the smallest administrative division in Ireland, currently used for statistical purposes.

There are a number of ways you could number them. The task of deciding on the optimal way is a design task. Much more complex numbering processes have been done in much shorter periods of time (one such process I have some experience of is the Unicode process).

, number roads (what, like L-numbers?) and then number houses.

So, basically, your case is that it would be easier to tell people that their address is "25, L10255, Area 63, Co. Mayo" than to give them an eircode to use along with the address they've been using for possibly decades?

[/quote]

No, that isn't my case at all. That's a bunch of words you decided to put into my mouth.

oscarBravo

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It is the smallest administrative division in Ireland, currently used for statistical purposes.

There are a number of ways you could number them. The task of deciding on the optimal way is a design task. Much more complex numbering processes have been done in much shorter periods of time (one such process I have some experience of is the Unicode process).

Numbering things is trivial. Telling Irish people that their address is no longer "Liscarney, Co Mayo" but instead is a street number on a road number within a small area number in County Mayo - no matter what ingenious numbering scheme you devise for those small areas - isn't. going. to happen.

In Denmark, every house has a street number on a road name. Also in Denmark, if you don't have the name of every recipient of post clearly printed on the mailbox, the mail won't be delivered. If the postcode is on the wrong line on the envelope, the mail won't be delivered.

Danish people, being Danish people, cheerfully comply with the requirements placed upon them by their government.

Irish people take to the streets at the very idea of paying for water.

No, that isn't my case at all. That's a bunch of words you decided to put into my mouth.

So use your own words. Explain to us - in detail - how it will be possible to change at least a third of the postal addresses in the country without any friction from the good people of the country.