Free the postcode!

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The postcode database - which turns a postcode to a latitude/longitude and back - is not free in the UK. In fact, it's very expensive. The Post Office owns it and sells it to various companies that make use of it for things like insurance or parcel tracking. There are however many people who'd like to use it for non-profit purposes. Say you want to lay out events like free concerts / gigs on a map and you only have the postcode... you have to buy the database.

Instead, wouldn't it be nice if it was free like zipcodes are in the US? To do this, you have to have a number of people collaborating with GPS units who note positions and postcodes. Hence this site to collect that data.

I, submit the following position: latitude , longitude (Remember to check positive or negative, 10 degrees West is -10 and 10 degrees East is 10) which I personally collected with a GPS for the postcode:   and place the information in the public domain.

PLEASE ONLY ENTER DATA YOU YOURSELF HAVE COLLECTED WITH A GPS
Other data may be copyrighted!

The small print

If you'd like a copy of the current public domain list, it is here (html). Or, there is a geoRSS feed here with a map here. Stats are here and there is a progress table here.

If you're interested in free geodata you should check out openstreetmap and opengeodata.

For info on the geocoder, problems, questions or rants please see the wiki page or mail me.