Full postcode database leaked online

[Geezer]

http://www.qas.co.uk/company/data-quali ... e_4334.htm

Sep 21 2009, 12:42 PM

The Royal Mail's full UK postcode database has been leaked over the internet.

Currently being hosted by the Wikileaks website, the file is thought to contain more than 1.8 million postcodes, as well as lattitude and longitude figures, grid references and Ordnance Survey references, according to the Guardian's Technology Blog.

However, it is not thought to contain individual names and addresses.

"We have no idea who has leaked this, but it is the gateway to some valuable information: Royal Mail, as we ascertained previously in the Free Our Data campaign, sells the Postcode Address File (aka PAF) for a considerable sum," blog author Charles Arthur noted.

In related news, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, recently urged to government to share more of its non-sensitive data.

He suggested that creating a central data access point – similar to that introduced in the US by the Obama administration - could be useful to businesses.