An up-to-date list of addresses is vital for local authorities - but they have to pay for the data they created themselves....
Council executives in charge of maintaining databases of land and property are in the frontline in the battle against one of the biggest absurdities highlighted by Technology Guardian's Free Our Data campaign: that councils have to spend local taxpayers' money for the privilege of using data that they themselves largely created.
The data are accurate lists of addresses, essential for public services and collecting council tax....Councils say they provide lists of street names and numbers for free - but Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail treat their data as a commercial asset and charge other public bodies to make it available to the wider public.
When a local authority puts its schools admission system online, as required by the e-government programme, it must pay Royal Mail if it wants to allow residents to search for a school by postcode. "We provide our data for free and they sell it back to us," says Kristin Warry, national chair of street gazetteer custodians....
The result...could be a grassroots rebellion. David Heyes, address manager at Wigan metropolitan borough council, Greater Manchester, says he is "very uncomfortable" with the click fee....
Technology Guardian's Free Our Data campaign offers a way out of the imbroglio. Surely there is a case for something as simple and valuable as lists of addresses to be declared open? The problem is that without such a radical step, the mood is driving government in the opposite direction....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/16/2006 02:09:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
