The document discusses the Open Addresses project, which aims to build a sustainable open database of addresses in the UK as an alternative to addresses currently only available from the private sector. It hypothesizes that closed address files are not well-suited to modern needs and that an open collaborative model could meet expectations of the modern economy while allowing new services and value-added products. The project is funded by the Release of Data Fund and in initial phases will develop a minimum viable product and engage stakeholders toward establishing an operational open addresses service and detailed business plan.

1. MRS Census &
Geodemographics Group
Jeni Tennison - @JeniT
Peter Wells - @peterkwells

2. "The sale of the PAF with the Royal Mail was a
mistake. Public access to public sector data
must never be sold or given away again. This
type of information, like census information
and many other data sets, is very expensive to
collect and collate into useable form, but it
also has huge potential value to the economy
and society as a whole if it is kept as an open,
public good."
Bernard Jenkin, Chair of Public Administration Select Committee

3. “Open data is data that can be freely used,
reused and redistributed by anyone –
subject only, at most, to the requirement to
attribute and share alike.”
Opendefinition.org

4. Open is not equivalent to free
open
data
free
service

5. Hypothesis 1: closed address files are monopoly
information assets, embedded in huge amounts of public
data, but which cannot be reproduced to a usable quality
Hypothesis 2: it is possible to build & maintain a
sustainable open address database better suited to
today's requirements using modern, collaborative
approaches to data management

6. A platform that brings together
data about the places we live,
work and visit.

7. Open Addresses Vision
• Meeting the expectations of the modern
information economy
• Collaboratively maintained to benefit
everyone
• Providing plenty of scope for value-added
products & services that avoid lock-in

8. Modern requirements
• Addresses are not just for posting mail
• Other requirements:
– validation & auto-completion
– geocoding for route finding
– associating people with areas
– classification of addresses for targeting
interventions
– linking datasets together

9. Modern maintenance
• Through collaboration
– professional / expert engagement
– the wider crowd
• Supplemented by
– targeted (funded) activity
• Addresses are well suited for this

10. Added value products
open
add detail addresses subset

11. The Project
• Funded from Release of Data Fund
– administered by Open Data User Group
– agreed by Public Sector Transparency Board
– operating out of Cabinet Office
• Legal feasibility
• Technical feasibility
• Sustainability feasibility

12. Symposium

13. What we found
• Legal feasibility
– received legal opinion that validation embeds RM/OS IP
– doing due diligence on key open datasets
• Technical feasibility
– data integration & inference from open data sets
– architecture for service provision including provenance
• Sustainability feasibility
– identified customer needs & possible products

14. Alpha Phase
• October & November
• Building minimum viable product
– inferred addresses from open data
– initial website with one page per address
– data downloads via BitTorrent
• Stakeholder engagement
– talking to prospective providers & users
• Initial business planning

15. Beta Phase
• December to March 2015
• Developing operational service
– providing API for data access
– providing lookup service with corrections
– crowd sourcing addresses from public / businesses
• Stakeholder engagement
– talking to sponsors & customers
• Detailed business planning

16. Unique opportunity
• Green field development
– do not need to be limited by legacy
• You can help this succeed
– supply addresses
– use validation / lookup service
• You can benefit from its success
– reduce costs
– build new products

17. Jeni Tennison
jeni.tennison@openaddressesuk.org
Peter Wells
peter.wells@openaddressesuk.org