National Postcodes to be introduced

Sam Russell

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

OK, once again s l o w l y.
An Eircode is a code assigned to a dwelling, this could be a house or an apartment or a busoness. The code belongs to that dwelling and identifies it. If you move somewhere else, you will now have to use the code assigned to that dwelling.
Saying "but! but! I don't like that!" well, yeah, life is tough. Its not designed that way. If you buy a new car, what would happen if you demanded to carry over your old reg?

In Switzerland, that is exactly what you do. But then again, Switzerland has a brilliant post code system. What a coincidence.:)

Trouwe Ier

clewbays wrote: »

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

As far as I know, the wording on all draft bills has to be run by the Attorney General's Office and I would presume that as part of this process in relation to this bill, the DPC would have been consulted and commented. However, I have been wrong before!

In the overall scheme of things, post code legislation is not as urgent as other legislation but when you consider that very comprehensive urgent legislation can pass through both houses in hours and be signed into law the next morning, this has been a tortuous process for such a short bill.

Sam Russell

What would happen if the revenue decided that they wanted L01 Tax1, Lo1 Tax2 etc for the various taxes going to their base in Limerick? Then they move to larger premises down the road. They would take those postcodes/addresses with them.

I just do not see the problem of reassigning Eircodes to new letterboxes in the same locality. Large mail users should be assigned bulk Eircodes for this very purpose. The BBC has loads of post codes for just such a purpose.

dr.fuzzenstein

Sam Russell wrote: »

In Switzerland, that is exactly what you do. But then again, Switzerland has a brilliant post code system. What a coincidence.:)

Ireland is certainly not Switzerland. :cool:

Sam Russell

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Ireland is certainly not Switzerland. :cool:

If we want Ireland to be like Switzerland, we have a mountain to climb.:)

Sam Russell

Trouwe Ier wrote: »

As far as I know, the wording on all draft bills has to be run by the Attorney General's Office and I would presume that as part of this process in relation to this bill, the DPC would have been consulted and commented. However, I have been wrong before!

In the overall scheme of things, post code legislation is not as urgent as other legislation but when you consider that very comprehensive urgent legislation can pass through both houses in hours and be signed into law the next morning, this has been a tortuous process for such a short bill.

Passing urgent legislation only occurs when the matter is so important that they do not have time to debate it properly.

larchill

Looks like it could be Christmas then before we see any eircodes? If so Santa might be the deliverer! Now, what if Enda calls it a day, all bets are off ...:rolleyes:

dr.fuzzenstein

larchill wrote: »

Looks like it could be Christmas then before we see any eircodes? If so Santa might be the deliverer! Now, what if Enda calls it a day, all bets are off ...:rolleyes:

Now that will be the real test of Eircodes. If it takes less than the usual 2 weeks to deliver my Xmas cards to me.

Trouwe Ier

www.autoaddress.ie tweeted the following this evening!

Autoaddress
‏@autoaddress
New website launched and Autoaddress 2.0 Preview API available for #Eircode Feedback welcome.
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6:06 PM - 15 Jun 2015

I think that they had originally planned to launch the new site on Saturday.

However: a note of caution - "Search restricted to the following list of sample addresses and dummy eircodes"

Looking at some of today's tweets from other side of what has become a chasm, there's seems to be a sour vineyard out there.

my3cents

Trouwe Ier wrote: »

www.autoaddress.ie tweeted the following this evening!

Autoaddress
‏@autoaddress
New website launched and Autoaddress 2.0 Preview API available for #Eircode Feedback welcome.
0 retweets 0 favorites
Reply Retweet Favorite
More
Embedded image permalink
6:06 PM - 15 Jun 2015

I think that they had originally planned to launch the new site on Saturday.

Looking at some of today's tweets from other side of what has become a chasm, there's seems to be a sour vineyard out there.

In the past its been sour enough here. At one stage if you dare criticise Loc8 you got anonymous hate PM's.

clewbays

larchill wrote: »

Looks like it could be Christmas then before we see any eircodes? If so Santa might be the deliverer! Now, what if Enda calls it a day, all bets are off ...:rolleyes:

The Select Committee is discussing the proposed amendments to the Amendment Bill this Wednesday so we will know more quite soon. Only one deputy tabled amendments.

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/bills28/bills/2015/4615/document1.htm

Trouwe Ier

Well Deputy Colreavy has at least given it some consideration and is trying to be constructive but I don't know if the Government side will accept any of his suggested amendments. He is one of the more cerebral parliamentarians.

His suggestions will hardly keep the committee occupied all day but the inmates of the Seanad may have suggestions of their own which could slow things down.

I think that the Dáil sits well into July this year and from what I recall, the Seanad sitting time lags a bit behind. I suppose that depending on events, there could still be a lot of progress over the next fortnight. The biggest threat of delay at this stage probably comes from independent senators.

I tried the examples on www.autoaddress.ie and it was a bit of an anti-climax for me.

Bayberry

Trouwe Ier wrote: »

Well Deputy Colreavy has at least given it some consideration and is trying to be constructive but I don't know if the Government side will accept any of his suggested amendments. He is one of the more cerebral parliamentarians.

He certainly wants to put some bite into the bill!

66F. (1) The use of the postcode to breach the data protection rights of a data
subject is an offence.
(2) A person who commits an offence under this Part is liable on summary
conviction to a fine not exceeding €1,000,000, or in the case of a body
corporate, whichever is the greater of €1,000,000 or 2 per cent of the
global turnover of that company or where that company is owned by
another company, 2 per cent of the global turnover of the ultimate
parent company.
(3) Where a person does outside the State an act that, if done in the State,
would constitute an offence under this section he or she shall be guilty
of an offence and he or she shall be liable on conviction to the penalty
to which he or she would have been liable if he or she had done the act
in the State.
(4) Where an offence under this Part is committed by a body corporate
and is proved to have been committed with the consent of or to be
attributable to any neglect on any part of any person, being a director,
manager, secretary or other officer of the body corporate or a person
who was purporting to act in such a capacity, that person, as well as
the body corporate, commits an offence and is liable to be prosecuted
against and punished as if he or she were committing the first
mentioned offence.
(5) Proceeding for an offence under this Part may be brought and
prosecuted by the Data Protection Commissioner.

Trouwe Ier

Eircode's Operations Director, Karen Dwyer did an interview on Northern Sound Radio today (link below).

http://media.northernsound.ie/mediamanager/embed/player/podcasts/30/item/41187

After 3m15s she said that from the launch date, anyone can go online and look up a code. She also said that the letters will have tear-out cards and will be sent out "over the summer". She mentioned publicity in newspapers and on television over "the next few weeks" and that the codes have all been allocated. I guess that they are just waiting for the legislation to go through now.

I know it's a dull, niche topic but whatever else their faults, they're certainly good at keeping secrets. Their website is looking a bit dated now.

ukoda

Trouwe Ier wrote: »

Eircode's Operations Director, Karen Dwyer did an interview on Northern Sound Radio today (link below).

http://media.northernsound.ie/mediamanager/embed/player/podcasts/30/item/41187

After 3m15s she said that from the launch date, anyone can go online and look up a code. She also said that the letters will have tear-out cards and will be sent out "over the summer". She mentioned publicity in newspapers and on television over "the next few weeks" and that the codes have all been allocated. I guess that they are just waiting for the legislation to go through now.

I know it's a dull, niche topic but whatever else their faults, they're certainly good at keeping secrets. Their website is looking a bit dated now.

Interesting listening

What I take from it:
Confirmed eircode stays with the property not the person
You can get your eircode on day 1 of launch on the website
There's a media campaign launching in the next few weeks, which means they must already have a date for launch, as TV / Radio slots would need to be locked in by now if it's just a few weeks away

ukoda

it seems likely now that they will just launch in a few weeks with the website and might not start the letters until the Bill passes, there's actually nothing stopping them launching this way.

Put the website live and start the media campaign, drive people to get their own code, no need for any Bill to be passed for this to happen, because A, they haven't released the database to any commercial entity and B they haven't started disseminating the code via An Post.

Buys them sometime to get the Bill passed in the next month but still launch

spuddy

Sam Russell wrote: »

In Switzerland, that is exactly what you do. But then again, Switzerland has a brilliant post code system. What a coincidence.:)

A little off topic, but Switzerland also has a brilliant stamp system. Don't have one handy? No problem. Text Swiss Post, receive a code, and just write it on the envelope Charge appears on your phone bill.
An Post, are you watching?

https://www.post.ch/en/private/a-z-of-subjects/franking-consignments/privat-franking-mail/private-franking-sms-stamps

recedite

Sam Russell wrote: »

Passing urgent legislation only occurs when the matter is so important that they do not have time to debate it properly.

Or if they want to stifle any debate. This bill is actually proceeding fairly quickly for a "normal" piece of legislation.

Trouwe Ier wrote: »

Well Deputy Colreavy has at least given it some consideration and is trying to be constructive but I don't know if the Government side will accept any of his suggested amendments.

At least he has thought about it. His plan to extend the offence to people operating overseas shows he is thinking about what will happen when eircodes get onto the internet and unofficial databases are created matching peoples names to them. The whole attempt at data protection will be worthless then.
He must also be aware that all this legislation will be unenforceable overseas. Not much else he can do though, other than table this amendment.

ukoda wrote: »

it seems likely now that they will just launch in a few weeks with the website and might not start the letters until the Bill passes, there's actually nothing stopping them launching this way.

Quite right, but it won't be a real launch, will it?
Not until the eircodes are made functional, which will only be when they are allowed to connect to the database.
It'll be a half-ar$ed fanfare. Best they can do in the circumstances.

ukoda

recedite wrote: »

Quite right, but it won't be a real launch, will it?
Not until the eircodes are made functional, which will only be when they are allowed to connect to the database.
It'll be a half-ar$ed fanfare. Best they can do in the circumstances.

They will be functional for An Post and the governments agencies from day 1, I doubt anyone else will notice that's it's not a "full launch" The Ops Director was careful with her words "you'll get your code on a phased basis over the summer" and also mentioning to "keep it safe for when you might need it" indicating its going to be an incremental launch and you may not meet the code straight away

And it's kind of a chicken and egg situation, companies aren't going to adopt it until everyone has one and people aren't going to start using it until companies ask them for it

Bayberry

recedite wrote: »

At least he has thought about it. His plan to extend the offence to people operating overseas shows he is thinking about what will happen when eircodes get onto the internet and unofficial databases are created matching peoples names to them. The whole attempt at data protection will be worthless then.
He must also be aware that all this legislation will be unenforceable overseas. Not much else he can do though, other than table this amendment.

If his amendment is accepted, it would be an offence if someone in Googles offices in Mountain View did the deed, and it would be enforcable against Googles assets here in Ireland, so it's not necessarily as useless a clause as it seems to be at first.

Not that I think Google would ever need to do that. But it's interesting that if the Government were to accept such an amendment, it would make eircodes toxic for any company that has gathered personal information up to now. Not that it matters, because the Government won't accept the amendment anyway.

recedite

ukoda wrote: »

They will be functional for An Post and the governments agencies from day 1..

I doubt that would be legal. Not before the legislation is enacted.

recedite

Bayberry wrote: »

... if the Government were to accept such an amendment, it would make eircodes toxic for any company that has gathered personal information up to now...

I think it would only be if they made that information available (matching the eircode to the name and/or any personal info)
But I agree his amendment is unlikely to be listened to by govt. parties.

ukoda

recedite wrote: »

I doubt that would be legal. Not before the legislation is enacted.

It's done, An Post have been ericode ready since May and auto address are bragging on their website about how they have already encoded ericode on 40+ million government database records.

Bayberry

recedite wrote: »

I doubt that would be legal. Not before the legislation is enacted.

It won't actually be an offence to do what the bill makes an offence until the bill is passed.

antoinolachtnai

No non-unique addresses have been encoded though. They are depending on service users sending in their eircodes.

Bayberry

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

No non-unique addresses have been encoded though. They are depending on service users sending in their eircodes.

Why didn't they just get them from An Post?

ukoda

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

No non-unique addresses have been encoded though. They are depending on service users sending in their eircodes.

How do you know that?

antoinolachtnai

The Department told me.

recedite

ukoda wrote: »

It's done, An Post have been ericode ready since May and auto address are bragging on their website about how they have already encoded ericode on 40+ million government database records.

OK, think about it.
How many people in this country 4 or 5 million? How many people per house?
How does that add up to 46 million addresses?

As mentioned by someone earlier, for non unique addresses, it may be necessary to deliver the code first, then take a GPS position so that the eircode can be matched and allocated to any info in the database already taken from geo-directory. It could be done the other way round, but that would be harder.

Being "eircode ready" is one thing, but being able to use an eircode to look-up the database info is another. Unless that link is in place the eircode is just a random number.

recedite

Bayberry wrote: »

It won't actually be an offence to do what the bill makes an offence until the bill is passed.

True, but it will be a breach of existing data protection legislation to disseminate the eircodes in a working form, until such time as the new legislation amending data protection law has passed.