National Postcodes to be introduced

dr.fuzzenstein

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

There is no question a code is a good idea.

The problem is that eircode is not a good code for a number of reasons. The fundamental problem is that the code is designed to mean nothing, or as little as possible.

There is a serious technical problem with the code. The whole code design begs the question. This is accepted by the eircode consortium.

The result is that a lot of eircodes are going to be distributed wrongly and a lot of people will end up with the wrong codes. There is no plan for making sure that eircodes will be distributed correctly.

There are also serious problems with privacy. Privacy was not a consideration in the design.

We always come back to the privacy thing. The problem is that it couldn't be something like the Postleitzahl, because the German postcode describes a town or an area.
In Germany everyone has an address with a street name and housenumber. So the PLZ will get you to the right area and then you just need to find the street and the house. Besides, in Germany when you say "I would like to build a house in the middle of nowhere please", they will say "Ja, zat is a good one. Nein!".
Irish planning is more like load a load of Monopoly houses into a blunderbus and fire them at a map. Sure be grand. Then, don't name the roads and don't number the houses. So you have Some Guy, Vague Townsland, Inissomething, Co Kerry.
Having a postcode that describes a general area (just like the name of the townland) is about as much use as a chocolate kettle or the Pope's balls.
Ireland's address system was designed to confuse and mislead the Brits, it deliberately obfuscates addresses, to make sure the locals knew where everyone is, but no one else does.
Sadly this fine, Irish, 800 year old tradition has to come to an end. I know people who would rather there wasn't a number or postcode on their house, they deliberately keep their address vague and have most stuff delivered to a postbox, they love the obscureness and I'm sure they are absolutely livid about having their house easily identified for "various reasons", but in the end it's still just an address. I have not yet heard a single convincing argument to that effect. I mean I heard a lot of arguments, but if you are right, all you would need is one. Arguing against with a thousand arguments is just obfuscation and hoping the other side will be blinded by the sheer number of "reasons". If there was a single convincing one, I haven't heard it.
And besides, if you post online, have a phone and a Facebook account (and whatever else those kids are into these days), you are already standing in the market place on a busy day with a megaphone, broadcasting the details of your life. Do you know you already have a unique identifier (or several) attached to you? It's your IP address and it can tell your whole story, far, far more than a postcode ever could. Compared to that a postcode is laughable.
Funny how the concerned posters seem to strenuously and grimly avoid this point being made over and over again.
If you are really concerned about your privacy you can't have a phoneline, broadband, phone, smart TV, tablet or smart phone.

PS:
And if you use Google, well you're boned. :P

Alun

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Sadly this fine, Irish, 800 year old tradition has to come to an end. I know people who would rather there wasn't a number or postcode on their house, they deliberately keep their address vague and have most stuff delivered to a postbox, they love the obscureness and I'm sure they are absolutely livid about having their house easily identified for "various reasons", but in the end it's still just an address.

And add in to that the other Irish tradition of actually living in one place but still "having an address" somewhere else completely different that you consider "home" and having all your post delivered there instead. And then using that as an excuse when you didn't get that important bill, or speeding fine on time because you only visit "home" once every three months.

clewbays

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

There is no plan for making sure that eircodes will be distributed correctly.

Section 66C of the Amendment Bill provides for the amendment of the principal Act to clarify that certain legitimate postcode activities may be undertaken in compliance with the Data Protection Acts. The scope of these legitimate postcode activities includes the dissemination of postcodes.
Hence An Post can use its local knowledge to deliver notifications to each household of its Eircode. The DPC must have sanctioned this approach.

Every working day of the year An Post uses its local knowledge to unravel the confusion behind having 35% of addresses non-unique. The local postman or postwoman knows that Jimmy Brown has a cousin in Florida and that Rita Murphy recently moved into the old schoolhouse.

If it is illegal for An Post to make use of their local knowledge to deliver Eircode notifications then it must be illegal at the moment for them to deliver post to non-unique addresses?

my3cents

clewbays wrote: »

Section 66C of the Amendment Bill provides for the amendment of the principal Act to clarify that certain legitimate postcode activities may be undertaken in compliance with the Data Protection Acts. The scope of these legitimate postcode activities includes the dissemination of postcodes.
Hence An Post can use its local knowledge to deliver notifications to each household of its Eircode. The DPC must have sanctioned this approach.

Every working day of the year An Post uses its local knowledge to unravel the confusion behind having 35% of addresses non-unique. The local postman or postwoman knows that Jimmy Brown has a cousin in Florida and that Rita Murphy recently moved into the old schoolhouse.

If it is illegal for An Post to make use of their local knowledge to deliver Eircode notifications then it must be illegal at the moment for them to deliver post to non-unique addresses?

I've had this discussion a few times with my postman. When eircodes start to be introduced he will have to deliver to the address indicated by the eircode even if he knows that the named person lives somewhere else nearby.

The current situation is that he delivers to the address if its unique and if not has to use local knowledge.

The only thing the postman is worried about is complaints from people that don't get their mail. So any question about the rights and wrongs of using local knowledge is moot provided the postman gets the mail to the right person.

Our postal system is really lax in many ways, and if it doesn't inconvenience the postman almost anything goes. I kid you not a near neighbor gets their letter mail delivered to the house next door and any parcels go to the local pub. I wind the guy up that one day he'll get a bill from An Post for the redirection that amounts to thousands because he's had this unpaid for service for at least ten years. However the arrangement saves the postman effort so will continue even when we get eircodes.

There are at least three variations of my address in use, it will be interesting to see if I get allocated more than one code.

dr.fuzzenstein

[Deleted User] wrote: »

There are at least three variations of my address in use, it will be interesting to see if I get allocated more than one code.

I wonder if I'll get one at all, because even if the address is written officially correct it always is crossed out and the letter does a few laps of the county.

tvc15

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I wonder if I'll get one at all, because even if the address is written officially correct it always is crossed out and the letter does a few laps of the county.

And my house is spelled incorrectly on Google Maps so that when I try to use the name the house has had for a century it can't be found, I wonder who will correct that and how many corrections there will be!

tvc15

tvc15 wrote: »

And my house is spelled incorrectly on Google Maps so that when I try to use the name the house has had for a century it can't be found, I wonder who will correct that and how many corrections tgete will be!

Google, I would imagine, it's their map.

antoinolachtnai

clewbays wrote: »

Section 66C of the Amendment Bill provides for the amendment of the principal Act to clarify that certain legitimate postcode activities may be undertaken in compliance with the Data Protection Acts. The scope of these legitimate postcode activities includes the dissemination of postcodes.
Hence An Post can use its local knowledge to deliver notifications to each household of its Eircode. The DPC must have sanctioned this approach.

Every working day of the year An Post uses its local knowledge to unravel the confusion behind having 35% of addresses non-unique. The local postman or postwoman knows that Jimmy Brown has a cousin in Florida and that Rita Murphy recently moved into the old schoolhouse.

If it is illegal for An Post to make use of their local knowledge to deliver Eircode notifications then it must be illegal at the moment for them to deliver post to non-unique addresses?

Sure, depending on local knowledge is fine if the item has a correct name on it and if the item has context, i.e., it is the sort of item that that recipient typically receives. The eircode postal item will have no context, and no name or possibly an incorrect name. What's more, if the customer receives the wrong eircode item, they will have no apparent way of knowing that they have received the wrong item.

Many items are delivered to incorrect addresses. Even correctly addressed mail to unique addresses goes astray 1 percent of the time.

Since you joined Boards.ie the week the contract was awarded and are apparently not interested in posting in any other topic on Boards.ie, and since you appear to have special insight, could you tell us what the plan is?

Can you also tell us more about the Data Protection Commissioner sanctioning this approach? What exactly has the DPC sanctioned?

SpaceTime

tvc15 wrote: »

And my house is spelled incorrectly on Google Maps so that when I try to use the name the house has had for a century it can't be found, I wonder who will correct that and how many corrections there will be!

You can report on google maps as an error. Just log in first. They're quite good at fixing errors and will respond.

ukoda

tvc15 wrote: »

And my house is spelled incorrectly on Google Maps so that when I try to use the name the house has had for a century it can't be found, I wonder who will correct that and how many corrections there will be!

You can submit corrections to Google Maps btw

SpaceTime

Alun wrote: »

And add in to that the other Irish tradition of actually living in one place but still "having an address" somewhere else completely different that you consider "home" and having all your post delivered there instead. And then using that as an excuse when you didn't get that important bill, or speeding fine on time because you only visit "home" once every three months.

That drives me nuts.

I know people who've been living in Dublin or Cork for 20+ years but still go "home" (to Kerry or Tipperary etc) to vote in elections!

Then they accuse the Dubs and Corkonians of being "clannish" and treating them as "blow ins". Yet they will never consider themselves local, don't get involved with anything, take no sense of ownership or pride in the place.

Effectively they don't engage in the cities they now live in and are voting in constituencies that they've very limited knowledge of and distorting local democracy.

Shouldn't be allowed at all.

I find a similar attitude from Dubs who moved to Kildare and far flung commuter towns. One woman I know actually got a VoIP 01 number because she was embarrassed by having an 045 "country" number !!??!

You've also got Dubliners using wrong postal area numbers. I know people who insist they're in Dublin 14 when the sign on the road outside their house says 16.

Likewise I've seen Dublin 9 on addresses in Dublin 13 and Dublin 4 being used in areas that are actually "Co. Dublin"

In Cork it's crazy with dense urban areas with house name. In some cases they were never numbered in other cases it's people refusing to use the numbers.

An Post shouldn't have ever allowed this to happen. Effectively they just keep delivering mail no matter how nuts the address is. That flexibility has created total chaos.

dr.fuzzenstein

ukoda wrote: »

You can submit corrections to Google Maps btw

The problems with Google maps is that anyone can. So if you don't like someone, you can submit a load of nonsense changes and have their pin moved to the middle of nowhere. I know a business located in the middle of nowhere and once a month they have to get on to Google "No, we didn't move, no we haven't changed our name, no we don't make condoms" only to find it all messed up next month again. Google will accept any change from any crackpot without question it seems.
The business in question can't wait for Eircode, because that can't be moved or messed up.
Google pins are about as reliable as a plumber's estimate.

ukoda

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

The problems with Google maps is that anyone can. So if you don't like someone, you can submit a load of nonsense changes and have their pin moved to the middle of nowhere. I know a business located in the middle of nowhere and once a month they have to get on to Google "No, we didn't move, no we haven't changed our name, no we don't make condoms" only to find it all messed up next month again. Google will accept any change from any crackpot without question it seems.
The business in question can't wait for Eircode, because that can't be moved or messed up.
Google pins are about as reliable as a plumber's estimate.

Not anymore, since that incident where someone put a drawing of the android bot taking a pee on the apple logo on the map in Pakistan.

They shut down the "free for all" edits, I think they are reviewing their policy's now on who can edit. And even before that, you could only directly edit a google map it you were a user who had built up a history of correct edits, other users had to have their submissions reviewed

clewbays

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

if the customer receives the wrong eircode item, they will have no apparent way of knowing that they have received the wrong item.

Minister White has told us that there will be an online tool available. This will enable all recipients to check whether the Eircode corresponds to their actual location. No doubt there may be some fraction of 1% of incorrect deliveries but these can be quickly corrected and presumably there is a financial penalty clause in the dissemination contract if the error rate exceeds a certain level. Rural Link and The Wheel will be available to provide assistance as required.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

What exactly has the DPC sanctioned?

Has the wording in the Amendment Bill been approved by the DPC?

peking97

Does anybody know when these codes will be rolled-out?....at one point on their website they say Spring 2015 and another says Summer 2015!

ukoda

peking97 wrote: »

Does anybody know when these codes will be rolled-out?....at one point on their website they say Spring 2015 and another says Summer 2015!

It's suppose to be this month, tho it appears that is pending a Bill amendment being passed in the Dáil which could be another few weeks

ukoda

I really don't understand how An Posts local knowledge will be of any use in disseminating the eircode.

They have made it clear that no names are attached to the eircode database so the flyer with the occupants eircode that the postman will have to deliver is going to be:

Ballynicetown
Locality
Town
County
A12 F1S3

How will his local knowledge be helpful here?

Trouwe Ier

ukoda wrote: »

I really don't understand how An Posts local knowledge will be of any use in disseminating the eircode......How will his local knowledge be helpful here?

.

Maybe it won't be An Post in all cases. I know nothing about how the codes will be delivered but as I said previously, perhaps they will contract out the awkward deliveries, for example using operatives to call to an address with some sort of hand-held verification device using GPS, a SIM card and barcode reader. The card with the code information for the householder could then be verified and scanned on the spot.

I know from a contact in the electronics industry that traffic wardens in Limerick use devices which identify location, read a number plate and send an update back to a database every time a ticket is issued so when you run out of the shop after parking for "only two minutes" and see the ticket on your windscreen, you can ring City Hall and they'll know all about the ticket already. In fact, you can even pay it over the phone before you get back into the car.

Similarly, Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus are able to gather real time data about how many passengers are boarding their vehicles and where.

The technology is there alright and it does seem that Eircode have been placing the emphasis on getting the message out to rural communities thus far.

As for when they will be issued, well, the third stage is scheduled for this week and then they have to agree scheduling for the fourth stage and then there's the Seanad so the pace is not electric.

They probably have the cards ready to print and I imagine that they'll be ready to go once the Bill becomes an Act and any related regulations are signed into the law.

Unless of course, Enda decides to go for a summer campaign!

Impetus

ukoda wrote: »

I really don't understand how An Posts local knowledge will be of any use in disseminating the eircode.

They have made it clear that no names are attached to the eircode database so the flyer with the occupants eircode that the postman will have to deliver is going to be:

Ballynicetown
Locality
Town
County
A12 F1S3

How will his local knowledge be helpful here?

A postman's local knowledge is invaluable when the delivery address is rural, un-named, no street name, no house number addresses. The postman learns the route.

THIS IS WHAT MANY OF THE TIME WASTING IDIOTS POSTING TO THIS FORUM SEEM TO FORGET. NOT TO MENTION TO IDIOTS AT GOV.IE AND THEIR €€€€€€€€€€ OUTSOURCING CONTRACTOR SEEM TO BE CLUELESS OF.

Eircode is a fraud on privacy, cost of set-up, and lack of functionality. No other country on the planet has come up with it as an alternative to giving every building a street/road address and number, and perhaps adding a national district number (4 or 5 digits) before the town name. The idiots in Eircode are still using county names - no other country on the planet uses county or province names in a mailing address.

Dumb, stupid, Oirish - Eircode.

dr.fuzzenstein

ukoda wrote: »

I really don't understand how An Posts local knowledge will be of any use in disseminating the eircode.

They have made it clear that no names are attached to the eircode database so the flyer with the occupants eircode that the postman will have to deliver is going to be:

Ballynicetown
Locality
Town
County
A12 F1S3

How will his local knowledge be helpful here?

Well, the code corresponds to a building. When I receive my code, which is unique to me, I can then presumably check if the code corresponds to my building. If it doesn't, I get on to them, maybe my neighbour received my code or the other way round. If the code is correct, no worries.
Once I am happy that my Eircode corresponds to the actual house I live in, I can then happily inform everyone to append it to my address.
No muss, no fuss.
And how else is the Amazon drone going to find me?
I'm sure there will be plenty of cranks who will deliberately play a game of confuse-a-cat for as long as they can, but that's their beef.
I got my address and I'm getting my deliveries. Happy days.

And again, to all the ranters (see post above). Are you on a computer? Do you possess a smartphone? The NSA already knows where you live, what sites you look at, what you post on facebook, they read all your emails, listened to your Skype calls and quite franky they are bored sh*tless with it.
If you are complaining about Eircode, you haven't quite grasped what a world we're living in and that your notion of privacy and data protection is laughable at best.

One more add-on for those concerned about privacy:
Theoretically you can leave out your name from the address, since the Eircode points at your building. Now that's pretty private:

Townsland
Nearest Town
Co Here
ER45 TF12

my3cents

Impetus wrote: »

A postman's local knowledge is invaluable when the delivery address is rural, un-named, no street name, no house number addresses. The postman learns the route.

THIS IS WHAT MANY OF THE TIME WASTING IDIOTS POSTING TO THIS FORUM SEEM TO FORGET. NOT TO MENTION TO IDIOTS AT GOV.IE AND THEIR €€€€€€€€€€ OUTSOURCING CONTRACTOR SEEM TO BE CLUELESS OF.

Eircode is a fraud on privacy, cost of set-up, and lack of functionality. No other country on the planet has come up with it as an alternative to giving every building a street/road address and number, and perhaps adding a national district number (4 or 5 digits) before the town name. The idiots in Eircode are still using county names - no other country on the planet uses county or province names in a mailing address.

Dumb, stupid, Oirish - Eircode.

No other country uses a county or province name because they already have postcodes :rolleyes: You can't have it both ways. There are iirc 5 townlands/villages with the same name as the one we live in all in different counties so we have to use the county name but as soon as eircodes are introduced the postal area part of the code will make it obvious which county we are in so no need to add the county name anymore.

Victor

Impetus wrote: »

A postman's local knowledge is invaluable when the delivery address is rural, un-named, no street name, no house number addresses. The postman learns the route.

THIS IS WHAT MANY OF THE TIME WASTING IDIOTS POSTING TO THIS FORUM SEEM TO FORGET. NOT TO MENTION TO IDIOTS AT GOV.IE AND THEIR €€€€€€€€€€ OUTSOURCING CONTRACTOR SEEM TO BE CLUELESS OF.

Eircode is a fraud on privacy, cost of set-up, and lack of functionality. No other country on the planet has come up with it as an alternative to giving every building a street/road address and number, and perhaps adding a national district number (4 or 5 digits) before the town name. The idiots in Eircode are still using county names - no other country on the planet uses county or province names in a mailing address.

Dumb, stupid, Oirish - Eircode.

There may or may not be merits to your argument. However, abuse is unacceptable.

Moderator

Reiver

I'm not going to be using it. All my letters get sent just fine without a postcode.

ukoda

Reiver wrote: »

I'm not going to be using it. All my letters get sent just fine without a postcode.

A postcode is for much more than delivering letters!

What if someone wants directions to your house? Give them your code and that's all they need

When you call a call centre and they want to find you on the system they will ask you for your postcode

When you apply for anything banking / insurance etc they will want your postcode

When you order from just eat or the like they will want your postcode as an easy way to identify your building

Think beyond getting your mail delivered

Trouwe Ier

Impetus wrote: »

A postman's local knowledge is invaluable when the delivery address is rural, un-named, no street name, no house number addresses. The postman learns the route.

Agreed but the post man doesn't deliver for a courier company, he doesn't read meters, treat patients, extinguish fires, respond to reports of a crime, fix gas escapes etc. etc.

Impetus wrote: »

THIS IS WHAT MANY OF THE TIME WASTING IDIOTS POSTING TO THIS FORUM SEEM TO FORGET. NOT TO MENTION TO IDIOTS AT GOV.IE AND THEIR €€€€€€€€€€ OUTSOURCING CONTRACTOR SEEM TO BE CLUELESS OF.

This idiot is recouperating in bed with all the papers read and little else to do on a Sunday afternoon so I don't feel like I've wasted my time on this forum. However, I have wasted plenty of publicly-paid time driving in circles around Richill, Robertstown, NCR, SCR etc.

Impetus wrote: »

Eircode is a fraud on privacy, cost of set-up, and lack of functionality.....Dumb, stupid, Oirish - Eircode.

As I've said, it is not perfect and once the genie is out of the bottle that will be that but we are all speculating at present. All concerns must be addressed and viewpoints respected. I note that no-one appears to have sought a judicial review of the process, or an injunction or any sort of stay on the proceedings.

dr.fuzzenstein

Reiver wrote: »

I'm not going to be using it. All my letters get sent just fine without a postcode.

Nobody is forcing you. But utilities, banks, registered letters, maybe employers, social welfare, local council, may insist on it, so you may not be able to completely avoid it.
But if you don't want to, no worries. Nobody is forcing you. People can be as awkward as they want. I can go to the shop and try to pay in pennies, I can refuse to give my name or phone-number to people, I can say my email is top secret it's a free country.

But again, isn't it funny how none of the naysayers seem to be interested to give their point of digital privacy? I wonder why...:D

SpaceTime

ukoda wrote: »

I really don't understand how An Posts local knowledge will be of any use in disseminating the eircode.

They have made it clear that no names are attached to the eircode database so the flyer with the occupants eircode that the postman will have to deliver is going to be:

Ballynicetown
Locality
Town
County
A12 F1S3

How will his local knowledge be helpful here?

Maybe it'll just be arbitrary they'll have a map with houses marked along a route and they'll assign the postcode to that building.

Since the codes are a bit like landline phone numbers, pseudorandom with a local area routing code equivalent to the local exchange all that matters is that the code applies to one location and is unique.

They've no need to know who lives there - they just need to physically visit and push a code through the letterbox and record it on a list that becomes part of a database.

I'm not saying that's an ideal system but I don't think assigning the codes will be a big issue.

Maybe the postman may even just be able to assign a spare code to a new house on his/her route.

There's going to have to be a process to get codes for new buildings too. Ideally, that should be integrated into the planning permission.

ukoda

SpaceTime wrote: »

Maybe it'll just be arbitrary they'll have a map with houses marked along a route and they'll assign the postcode to that building.

Since the codes are a bit like landline phone numbers, pseudorandom with a local area routing code equivalent to the local exchange all that matters is that the code applies to one location and is unique.

I'm not saying that's an ideal system but I don't think assigning the codes will be a big issue.

Maybe the postman may even just be able to assign a spare code to a new house on his/her route.

There's going to have to be a process to get codes for new buildings too. Ideally, that should be integrated into the planning permission.

Yeah I'm sure they will figure it out anyway

Agreed about he new codes, something like the "not yet built" database they have in the UK

I think as soon as you are approved for planning permission ABP should liaise with eircode straight away to get a code created

SpaceTime

In theory applying for one could be very simple as it's just "routing key" + pseudorandom 4 digit code. There's no need for any massive process.

They're not even grouped it structured (as far as we know so far). So it's literally just like assigning a landline number.

I'd say the most obvious way to do this would be give the posties a smartphone with a GPS app that they just assign the code and write it on a card and register the GPS location.

Hardly difficult with ubiquitous 2015 technology. Might mean a fleet of An Post smartphones though.

An Post are even a mobile provider with their own MVNO now called "Post Mobile" so I doubt it's much of a challenge to them.