Addr:postcode in Canada

[emvee]

See this topic:

How to modify a mistaken postal code geolocation

My client is the Quebec government health insurance agency called RAMQ which has a lovely interface for finding a point of service using a map Trouver un point de service | Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) . There’s a mistaken record in openstreetmap pertaining to town with a postal code “JOX 1E0” that is physically in the government of Québecs jurisdiction that according to openstreetmap is in Prescott Russel Ontario. This is a mistake of about 130 kilometers from the true locat…

To my surprise the postcode in question, J0X 1E0, is popping up in 5 clusters:

Overpass query

Zooming in around the places I see more variation in postcodes then I would expect. What is going on?

[tekim (Mike)]

In a less than 0.1 sq km area I found 19 different values for the addr:postcode tag:

OpenStreetMap

[hoserab]

Yeah, there are (/were…) two problems here:

1. the mapper “mapaylmer”, who hasn’t contributed for seven years, added a bunch of gibberish postal codes in Gatineau, and,
2. a seemingly earnest typo at a park in Mansonville (Way History: ‪Parc de la rivière Missisquoi Nord‬ (‪437146571‬) | OpenStreetMap), which accidentally transposed J0X 1E0 for J0E 1X0,

resulted in Nominatim putting the geographical ‘midpoint’ of the J0X 1E0 postal code in Ottawa.

I’ve since fixed the postal codes of the affected buildings/park.

Someone should really go back through all of the buildings’ postal codes in Gatineau; many of them are a hodgepodge when they should generally be consistent along one side of a street for at least a block or two.

Problem solved @Joseph_Olstad!

[Joseph_Olstad]

Thank you! I look forward to seeing how this works out next week.

[DENelson83]

Should we even have Canadian postal codes in OpenStreetMap? Canada Post created all of these postal codes, and treats such data as proprietary, as was seen in its litigation against geocoder.ca. And my impression from that is that Canada Post has no intention of ever licencing such data for use in products like OpenStreetMap without charging a massive prohibitive fee.

[hoserab]

Canada Post did indeed sue Geolytica, the company that operates geocoder.ca, asserting copyright over postal codes, but the lawsuit was dropped ten years ago. They were roundly ridiculed by the press and public for the absurd assertion that: 1) an individual publicly sharing a postal code was violating Canada Post’s copyright on their postal code database, and 2) the phrase “postal code” itself was copyrighted by Canada Post.

Can we as OSM mappers use Canada Post’s Postal Code Address database? No. Canada Post will licence this data for commercial use for a fee, and they do not have any open licencing for this data. Can we input postal codes into the OSM database sourced from elsewhere? Yeah, absolutely.

[DENelson83]

But where did “elsewhere” get their postal code data? Its traceability chain goes all the way back up to Canada Post, which means the data copyright cascades all the way down, allowing Canada Post to continue to breathe down the necks of projects like ours. Canada Post did not promise not to take any more legal action with regard to any of its data being re-agglomerated in bulk.

[hoserab]

Well I guess you’re not going on my Christmas card list, because I can’t know your address without you violating Canada Post’s copyright. After all, where did you get your own postal code from?

Canada Post dropped their suit against Geolytica precisely because they were going to lose, badly.

[Jarek]

@DENelson83

But where did “elsewhere” get their postal code data? Its traceability chain goes all the way back up to Canada Post, which means the data copyright cascades all the way down, allowing Canada Post to continue to breathe down the necks of projects like ours.

On an extreme scale, if I add in the postal code of the building I live in, is Canada Post breathing down our neck?

They assigned the postal code, but I would not say they own it or get to control how it is used, other than commercial arrangements (selling databases of postal codes to people who choose to buy them).

In particular, database rights aren’t a thing in Canada. Conceivably, the use of Canada Post website or other resources provided directly by Canada Post could be subject to some terms and conditions that aim to protect the database, but that’s separate.

Until there is a new court ruling that says that Canada Post is able to prevent independent re-assembly of postal codes, I would say we’re pretty in the clear.