The ODUG Push Continues - We need your help!

Hi all,

As regular readers will know, I have a hobby: Open Data.

As a member of the Open Data User Group I work with a like-minded community to gather requests and produce business cases to encourage public bodies to release more of their data to benefit UK PLC and society.

So far, we've had some successes and have also published our first tranche of business cases for datasets such as the VAT Register, river centre lines and historic Met Office observations. These can all be found here and I'd encourage you to comment on them to add your support and further evidence to get this data made available to everyone, for free.

Most important of all, we are pushing the UK Government to make available an Open Address Register for the UK. Currently, a number of files exist which are managed and licensed commercially by the likes of the Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey. If you know anything about my day job at Experian QAS, you'll also know that I have an intimate knowledge of a number of these datasets. I'm not proud of that fact.

This is really important. An accurate register of addresses and locations needs to be held by the public for the benefit of all. We are at serious risk of at least one of the core reference files available today falling into private hands.


Addresses are crucial to our lives. Whether it be delivering a curry, getting a bank account or asking for an ambulance; your address and postcode are very, very important. With the current license restrictions on the data preventing many organisations and individuals from re-using it (with the cost of some data being out of reach for all but the largest corporations), the state of play in the UK is not good when compared to some of our European neighbours.

If having such important data in private hands (under an expensive, restrictive license) is not a concern for you, stop reading now. If this is a concern for you as a business or an individual (remember, your taxes pay to create and manage this data); then please visit this link to help the Open Data User Group get your data where it should be - in your hands.

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