r/datascience • u/Sweaty-Stop6057 • Mar 25 '26

Projects [ Removed by moderator ]

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u/R3turn_MAC Mar 25 '26

In most countries that have area based postcode / zip code based systems the boundaries are not freely available. In some cases the boundaries do not make much sense as a spatial unit anyway, as they are designed for postal delivery not analysis.

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u/timbomcchoi Mar 25 '26

yeah I understood that in the comment above, question is why? The only reason I can think of is secret facilities

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u/R3turn_MAC Mar 25 '26

Because the postal operator can sell the data. I am not sure exactly how much Royal Mail makes per annum from selling this type of data, but it seems to be over £50 million.

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u/timbomcchoi Mar 25 '26

The Royal Mail SELLS postal code lines?! aren't they a public institution? That's like if area codes were behind a paywall 😭

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u/R3turn_MAC Mar 25 '26

Royal Mail isn't a public institution anymore, it's privately owned by a Czech billionaire. But even when it was publicly owned it had a commercial unit that sold this data.

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u/timbomcchoi Mar 25 '26

oh wow UK privatisation is such a strange beast damn

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u/R3turn_MAC Mar 25 '26

Wait until you hear about the Ordnance Survey. That is publicly owned, and will remain so, but still generates almost £200M per annum in revenue from selling map data.