
Australian Geocoded national address data to be made openly available - zspitzer
https://blog.data.gov.au/news-media/blog/geocoded-national-address-data-be-made-openly-available
======
nathancahill
This is amazing. I was astonished that even zip code data is proprietary data
of the USPS in the United States. It's possible to "reverse engineer" the data
from publicly available census data (zip code tabulation areas) which is what
I do and publish for free on ZipLocate[0]. Comparable datasets cost $499.

Canada's situation is even worse. Geocoder.ca has been sued by Canada Post[1]
to take down their data (which Canada Post was selling for $5000).

The whole address data situation is really terrible. Glad to see Australia
opening up the data.

[0] [http://ziplocate.us/](http://ziplocate.us/)

[1] [http://geocoder.ca/?sued=1](http://geocoder.ca/?sued=1)

~~~
dsp1234
US zip codes are authorized and assigned by the USPS, so by definition they
are proprietary. However, the data itself (once it is obtained) is freely
redistributable (in raw form).

The barrier is that the official source of zip code data, _National Five-Digit
ZIP Code and Post Office Directory_ , is copyrighted[0], and there is work in
extracting the data from it.

The nice thing is that US copyright law limits the protection for "facts" [1].
The selection and arrangement of facts can be copyrighted, but not the
underlying facts themselves. So it's perfectly legal in the US to take the zip
code data and distribute it, just not in the original form from the _National
Five-Digit ZIP Code and Post Office Directory_.

As for other countries than the US, it would depend on their local laws.

[0] -
[http://pe.usps.com/Archive/HTML/DMMArchive0810/G013.htm](http://pe.usps.com/Archive/HTML/DMMArchive0810/G013.htm)

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Compilations_of_facts_and_the_sweat_of_the_brow_doctrine)

~~~
desdiv
For anyone else wondering why isn't _National Five-Digit ZIP Code and Post
Office Directory_ in public domain like every other work of the US government:

>Works by certain independent agencies, corporations and federal subsidiaries
may not be considered "government works" and may, therefore, be copyrightable.
For instance, material produced by the United States Postal Service are
typically subject to normal copyright.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government#Exemptions)

------
bigiain
Heh, this'll reduce the slightly-underground trading of recent-ish versions of
the Ausyralia Post postcode to lat/long database that pretty much anybody
doing ecommerce web dev in Australia has likely engaged in for the last 15
years ;-)

(On a more cynical note: I bet this is only happening because geocoding via
GoogleMaps has become "good enough" that nobody is paying the outrageous
prices they used to ask for this data...)

~~~
theblueprint
You may also want to check out Data Tools' Express Capture -
[http://expresscapture.datatools.com.au/](http://expresscapture.datatools.com.au/)

~~~
mianos
That is great, now with some relatively simple infrastructure you will won't
have to get ripped off ever again.

------
oxplot
This is a fantastic news. As an Australian and someone who has worked on
personal projects requiring a geocoded address database, and had to jump
through million hoops to come close to it, this is invaluable.

Here's a related thread I've been following for sometime:
[https://datagovau.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Free-the-G-NAF-
Address...](https://datagovau.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Free-the-G-NAF-Address-
Dataset/19892-26233#idea-tab-comments)

~~~
voltagex_
What were your alternatives? Google geocoding gets expensive quickly.

~~~
oxplot
Reverse engineering data in commercial products. Of course this is not a
viable solution for anything but private personal stuff.

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ZenoArrow
For anyone in the UK is interested in this type of data:

[https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-
government/pro...](https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-
government/products/code-point-open.html)

The data is free, but it's in Easting/Northing format rather than
Latitude/Longitude. I would recommend converting it to Latitude/Longitude
using the WGS84 projection (if that means nothing to you, basically it means
you're using the standard format for coordinate data used in websites, can use
the data with Google Maps, OSM, etc...).

~~~
petepete
Breasal is a handy tool for doing the conversion.

[https://github.com/theodi/breasal](https://github.com/theodi/breasal)

~~~
ZenoArrow
Thanks for the tip.

I'm planning on doing this conversion soon, I intended to use the following C#
library as a SQL Server CLR function, but I probably would've used breasal (or
something similar) if I was using Linux:

[https://code.google.com/p/geocoordconversion/](https://code.google.com/p/geocoordconversion/)

For anyone who wants to use this C# library, worth reading this:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:er_vqaK...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:er_vqaKhr3YJ:www.adathedev.co.uk/2013/03/gb-
post-code-importer-conversion.html+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=opera)

~~~
petepete
Another good source of UK Postcode data is doogal.co.uk. The author (Chris
Bell) combines the Codepoint Open dataset with other ones from the ONS; that
gives a more comprehensive list of postcodes (including ones that are no-
longer in use and codes in Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man).

In his datasets he's already done the conversion to regular lat/lon.

[http://www.doogal.co.uk/UKPostcodes.php](http://www.doogal.co.uk/UKPostcodes.php)

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axman6
This is big news, PSMA was basically setup as a for profit government owned
business which sold this data at great cost. I'm really glad the government
has seen how valuable this data is to the Australian people and business.
Great to see the government making genuine improvements to foster innovation
in Australia today, really impressive stuff.

------
Cogito
This looks very promising!

Hopefully this means the data can be incorporated into projects like
OpenStreetMaps, though I have no idea if it is appropriate (I guess it would
be) nor if it's already incorporated or not (I would guess not, based on the
article).

~~~
stephen_g
This should go into OpenAddresses -
[http://openaddresses.io](http://openaddresses.io)

OpenAddresses was set up by some OSM developers as a better way of parsing,
tracking and combining these kinds of address datasets rather than storing
them directly in the OSM database.

There are already a lot of addresses in there in Queensland and Victoria, so
it may be some work to combine them.

~~~
sbma44
I'm the guy who imported the Queensland and Victoria addresses, and I've been
in touch with members of the government in Canberra who are leading out this
effort. The new release should supersede the existing Australian datasources
in OpenAddresses.io; my expectation is that we'll deprecate them in favor of
this one.

~~~
MapMaker
PSMA publish GNAF every three months. Need to think about a production process
and metadata :-). There are about 100k "new" addresses each time and a lot of
addresses improve their location. Might be worth asking for a change file.

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iand
This might stimulate some progress in the UK which is under a legal
stranglehold of the privatised post office address file. The licensing of UK
postcodes infects all the derived sources meaning there is no clear path to
constructing a freely licensed set of geocoded postcodes. The ODI published a
report on describing the details of the obstacles faced:
[http://theodi.org/case-studies/open-addresses-the-story-
to-d...](http://theodi.org/case-studies/open-addresses-the-story-to-date)

------
chiaro
This is part of the big federal innovation push today. Looks like more open
data will be a focus, thankfully.

[http://www.innovation.gov.au/page/data-sharing-
innovation](http://www.innovation.gov.au/page/data-sharing-innovation)

~~~
oxplot
This is even more interesting! I wonder if this means RMS would have to open
their street data (e.g. maps, sign locations, speed limits, turn restrictions,
etc).

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ACow_Adonis
Seriously, if this is true, as an Australian who has worked with this data in
government, and who has gone through the gamut of trying to find such data wrt
my own projects, this will be fantastic.

One of the biggest barriers that made me leave out various
geographical/address routines in my own work was the legal minefield regarding
who owns and can use this kind of data, and that I'd put myself at too much
risk even if I did get some details together "legitimately".

Very promising...

------
SoreGums
so test/test gets you into the web system - unfortunately has a different
password for getting the actual data from the SFTP server... Just have to wait
until Feburary then I guess (no release date announced, this is the next
scheduled release of data), oh well.

~~~
MapMaker
PSMA usually release In the last week on the Month. I suspect it will be the
22nd of Feb 2016.

------
sailavu
As an Australian and as someone who attempted to obtain G-NAF data for an
address validation service this is fantastic news. Address data in general and
geocodes in particular are a precious commodity from a licensing point of
view. They help CRMs maintain good address data and are also very helpful in
driving location based marketing activities.

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voltagex_
[https://isgnaffreeyet.xyz](https://isgnaffreeyet.xyz) \- I couldn't resist.

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Doctor_Fegg
> The G-NAF and Administrative Boundaries datasets will be published under an
> open data licence

Please let this be an actual open data licence, not a creative works licence
(i.e. CC-anything but 0) applied to data, which has been the standard practice
of the Australian government.

~~~
stereo
I agree with you that CC0 would be ideal form every point of view, but the 4.0
CC licenses have actually been built to work for databases too.

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frontier
This is awesome - and long overdue!

Can't believe how expensive this data was.. at some point we discovered that
the suburb boundary polygons could be hacked out of the census reports though!

~~~
timv
The ABS has been providing shape files of their geographies for quite a while.

While they're not a perfect match for the official administrative boundaries,
they're good enough for many use cases.

Amoung other things, they provide polygons for suburbs, LGAs, and postcodes.

~~~
MapMaker
FYI these "Non ABS" geographies form part of the Australian Staistical
Geography Standard and the 2016 version will be formed by aggregates of Mesh
Blocks. The alignment between ABS versions and the official ones will be much
much closer.

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chris_wot
Where can we get this?

~~~
gordjw
FTA, data.gov.au, in February 2016

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mianos
Another good reason I am happy this will be released is earlier last year I
called three re-sellers of this data and none even bothered calling me back.

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legulere
Sadly they don't say which license they're going to use. This would be very
important for an import to Openstreetmap

