Postal Codes

Follow:

  • RSS
  • Cite

    Cite

    APA

    Open Government, Government of Canada. (2016, April 7). Postal Codes. Retrieved from http://open.canada.ca/en/idea/postal-codes-0
    MLA

    “Postal Codes.” Open Government, Government of Canada, 7 April 2016, http://open.canada.ca/en/idea/postal-codes-0
    (Report an issue with citation)
Submitted By
Richard Pietro
Votes: 164

It is time for Canada Post to release Postal Codes as open data sets under the Open Government Licence. Other jurisdictions have come to learn that access to Postal Code data is essential in creating a more open government.

 

For example, the UK, Norway, Japan, the U.S., and Rwanda all release their geocoded Postal Codes.

http://index.okfn.org/dataset/postcodes/

 

Meanwhile, Canada ranks 40th in the World on this issue. I believe this should be a priority for the next Open Government Action Plan.

Add new comment

About text formats
Rules of Engagement

We look forward to hearing from you. Your ideas and feedback are central to the development of both the Open Government portal and the Government of Canada’s approach to Open Government.

While comments are moderated, the portal will not censor any comments except in a few specific cases, listed below. Accounts acting contrary to these rules may be temporarily or permanently disabled.

Comments and Interaction

Our team will read comments and participate in discussions when appropriate. Your comments and contributions must be relevant and respectful.

Our team will not engage in partisan or political issues or respond to questions that violate these Terms and Conditions.

Our team reserves the right to remove comments and contributions, and to block users based on the following criteria:

The comments or contributions:

  • include personal, protected or classified information of the Government of Canada or infringes upon intellectual property or proprietary rights
  • are contrary to the principles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Constitution Act, 1982
  • are racist, hateful, sexist, homophobic or defamatory, or contain or refer to any obscenity or pornography
  • are threatening, violent, intimidating or harassing
  • are contrary to any federal, provincial or territorial laws of Canada
  • constitute impersonation, advertising or spam
  • encourage or incite any criminal activity
  • are written in a language other than English or French
  • otherwise violate this notice

Our team cannot commit to replying to every message or comment, but we look forward to continuing the conversation whenever possible. Please note that responses will be provided in the same language that was used in the original comment.

Our team will reply to comments in the official language in which they are posted. If we determine the response is a question of general public interest, we will respond in both official languages.

Comments

Submitted by Israel Graniel on September 23, 2022 - 1:25 PM

It is absolutely essential to have a full list of postal codes, this will enable so many commerce and information tools for the benefit of everyone. This data is not supposed to be restricted or privileged. Canada Post currently charges ~$10,000 CAD to access their API of postal codes database, which is absurd. This should be free and open information.

Submitted by Chloe on June 19, 2022 - 6:27 AM

Use to analyze our demographic and geographic of our Online shopping

Submitted by Ali on May 26, 2022 - 2:20 AM

I second that! I have been looking out for this data for years. Can't stress enough how it impacts my business and my customers.

We need this data to be publically available and up-to-date.

Submitted by Joseph Olstad on August 19, 2021 - 1:22 PM

I added a comment a few weeks ago but it didn't show up here. Are the moderators able to approve comments here? We need postal codes.

Submitted by open-ouvert on August 19, 2021 - 1:43 PM

Hi Joseph, 

We currently don't have a timeline as to when this data will be released.  It has been in high demand for a number of years, and Canada Post is aware of that.  We unfortunately won't know more until Canada Post makes a decision. 

Kind regards,

The Open Government team

Submitted by Randy Legault on September 24, 2021 - 4:12 AM

As a community non-profit, it is galling to have to wrestle with for-profit database providers to get access to data developed with Canadian public funds and that serves a very public service.

Postal code data is, by definition a public good, -- use by one person neither prevents access of other people nor does it reduce availability to others, except where by failure to publish, the government creates artificial conditions of exclusivity creating a "club good" from our investment as a nation.

Our 40th rank globally for publication of this dataset shows that action is overdue on release of this public data.

Submitted by Normand Henault on July 25, 2018 - 9:04 PM

I could not agree more ... Zip codes are ... Well ... Just zip codes ...

Submitted by Michael Ross on April 28, 2016 - 6:35 PM

At least provide a representative coordinate location, in geographic coordinates ( EPSG code 4326), for each Local Delivery Unit. This data will enable provincial and local government applications to allow its citizens to enter a postal code as a proxy for their location. Currently, Canada Post does not allow its postal code data to be used for such purposes.

Submitted by Jon MacKay on April 19, 2016 - 10:37 PM

I completely agree that Canadian Postal Code information should be made fully available and free for commercial use.

Submitted by Aaron Freeman on April 12, 2016 - 4:42 PM

I strongly support the government issuing a ministerial directive to Canada Post to make this dataset fully public. There is a great deal of initiatives benefiting the non-profit sector that cannot be developed because of the withholding of this taxpayer-funded dataset from the public.

Submitted by John Whelan on April 12, 2016 - 3:39 PM

Sounds good to me but I really feel that robots with AI should have the vote.

Submitted by Sunny Purewal on April 12, 2016 - 2:42 PM

Postal Code information is vital for many location enabled applications. Please follow other countries that make this data open.

Submitted by James McKinney on April 12, 2016 - 2:13 PM

Great idea, Richard :) The Postal Code Database is the most voted dataset on Canada's Suggested Datasets page: http://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets There is a good discussion there on users' needs. I would also like to draw attention to a petition that was started very recently: https://www.change.org/p/canada-post-president-deepak-chopra-canada-post-needs-to-release-postal-codes-as-open-data I don't anticipate Canada Post will voluntarily or proactively publish this data, considering it is defending the copyright that it claims in this data: http://geocoder.ca/?sued=1 Canada Post also has no obligation to the Treasury Board Secretariat. However, according to the Canada Post Corporations Act, Canada Post does have an obligation to the Minister responsible for Canada Post Corporation, the Honourable Judy M. Foote: "the Corporation shall comply with such directives as the Minister may give to it." To move the conversation forward, and in consideration of Canada Post's financial interests in not releasing this data, I would recommend that the Minister request a report from Canada Post estimating the revenue loss from releasing this data. This report should be made public. Thus informed, the Minister and the public can evaluate whether the social and economic benefits of releasing this data exceed the revenue losses. In the UK, Nigel Shadbolt describes some social and economic benefits: https://theodi.org/blog/cornerstone-open-data-postcode-address-file I recommend following the links from the post, in particular the submission from the Open Data User Group describing international experiences: https://data.gov.uk/library/open-data-user-group-postcode-ownership-international-examples To be specific about what data to release, I recommend that Canada Post release its Postal Code Address Data (PCAD). In 2012, Canada Post sent me a quote of $50,600 per year for commercial use of this data. This price tag suppresses use of this data for social and economic benefit.