Post #2459162

2026-05-12 15:32 UTC

For a couple of years now Owen Boswarva has been patiently asking local councils for their address data under FOI, gradually building a dataset published as open data. Today Ordnance Survey &amp; GeoPlace slapped him with a cease &amp; desist: https://www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-addr86.htm For all their talk of #opendata, and for all the money they get paid from government to do open data, they still consider the location and street number of your house as their intellectual property.

Replies (4)

@harry_wood@en.osm.town 2026-05-13 11:46

From Owen: "I'm keen to emphasise that I also asked for (and documented) permission for re-use under an open licence in each case. Disclosure under FOI does not by itself make data open, legally. I also haven't actually been trying to build a combined dataset myself though I suppose it's possible others may be."

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@pietervdvn@en.osm.town 2026-05-12 19:21

@harry_wood@en.osm.town oh, interesting case. IMHO (and Ianal) but I think this would indeed still be copyrighted data

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@InsertUser@en.osm.town 2026-05-13 12:03

@harry_wood@en.osm.town At this point I would happily sign a petition to cut all direct and indirect government funding of Ordnance Survey and prohibit councils from giving them any data without getting a hefty payment for it.

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@joeldn@en.osm.town 2026-05-17 13:02

@harry_wood@en.osm.town Thanks for highlighting this. Ten years ago I hopefully took up the "let's get addresses" right challenge as the problem is already solved: we have definitive addresses for the British Isles. But... Royal Mail are private, and they hold IP on postcodes. This has turned public interest addressing into a labyrinth. OS have gone down the partnership route, and public services can devolve access to contractors, but for Owen's excellent idea to work #FreeThePostcode would be needed first.

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