Folks, I think people are confusing what is meant by privacy in the context of addressing and Eircodes.
The same as an address, a postcode only relates to the building/abode, not the occupiers of the building i.e. if you move, the address stays with the building as does the postcode. There are only privacy implications when you include personal details of the occupier. To be clear, once you have the details of a living person and can link those details with other things (address, health, education, location etc etc), then you are impacting their privacy and only then. To talk in terms of privacy in any other context shuts down the open data movement trying to open up govt data and would also have enormous ramifications for the likes of wikipedia, openstreetmap etc. To give an example, if I have a name "Gay Byrne" and an address No. 123, High Street, Fairview, Dublin 3, D3X 1234 and I add Gay Byrne, No. 123, High Street, Fairview, Dublin 3, D3X 1234 to OSM I impact that persons privacy. If I add No. 123, High Street, Fairview, Dublin 3, D3X 1234 to OSM, I do not. I could even add No. 123, High Street, Fairview, Dublin 3, D3X 1234, building=house, building_levels=2, roof_style=pitched, roof_colour=black, and so on, there would still be zero impact to the privacy of the individual who owns or occupies that building as I have not linked their personal information. Remember that OpenStreetMap is only interested in data that relates to place. It is not interested in *who* is in that place, only the attributes of *what* occupies that space. If postcodes/addresses ran the risk of breaching someones personal privacy I would be one of the first to shout about it, but they don't. Dave _______________________________________________ Talk-ie mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ie
