Royal Mail ‘Pinpoint’ Mapping Initiative

PRLog (Press Release) - Jul. 19, 2012 - When my postman dropped my mail through the letterbox this morning there was a card explaining that homes in East Anglia will be part of the pilot.  This will involve postmen and women mapping the precise co-ordinates or the GPS longitude, latitude and altitude co-ordinates of every delivery point in East Anglia including all homes and businesses in the area.

They explained that no collection of personal or confidential information would be collected but are just mapping address information, which will be accurate to the front door of every home.  

Royal Mail already provides one of the UK’s most widely used location-based tools – the postcode. This is used by the emergency services, satellite navigation systems and smartphone applications. They want to help improve the accuracy of this information, hence the mapping address information.  

So how will this happen and what will it involve, well on the card they sent me there was a picture of a postman with a small yellow telescope type piece of equipment.  This is apparently a satellite receiver, which is purely a distance measurement device; it does not capture photographs or videos of people or their properties.  
Royal Mail states “This initiative would improve the accuracy of current location-based information which underpins current and new technologies, without compromising the personal information of individuals.”

So should we be concerned about privacy, well Google have already intruded far more with their zoomable maps which can focus on an address or postcode (http://www.simply-postcode-lookup.com/for_web.htm).  Their Google Maps with Street View lets anyone explore places around the world through 360-degree street-level imagery.  

The Royal Mail website says, “With mail volumes in decline, it is important that Royal Mail continues to expand its range of trusted services. Royal Mail is undertaking this initiative in response to a need by businesses and consumers for more accurate local information.”

If the initiative works and is rolled out over the UK, I would assume that the information collected with be available to businesses as is the Postcode Address File or PAF that Royal Mail own.  The PAF (http://www.simply-postcode-lookup.com/free_postcode_finde...) is a database of the most up-to-date and complete addresses in the UK, containing over 28 million addresses.  Royal Mail then sell the PAF® as an invaluable tool for creating and maintaining mailing lists and databases.  The geographic mapping data (http://www.simply-postcode-lookup.com/geographic_data.htm) currently being collected will certainly be valuable to businesses and service providers.