The Government will, from 1 February, all real estate data that are included in the key registers of Addresses and Buildings (BAG) without charge accessible to the public. In this data, among other zip codes included.
The public make of the BAG data is the result of a judicial decision in a case that PostNL had instituted against the state. The postal operator, formerly known as TNT, did not believe that the state of all the address information including postal codes from the BAG without cost public would make, but the judge dismissed the objections.
In the BAG are several data about all the real estate in the Netherlands is stored. The data is according to the Dutch Government, and continuously updated by all Dutch governments. So are all the buildings the coordinates are registered, and additional data as purpose of use, year, and area data associated with it. Also, the address information is stored, including zip codes. Furthermore, the BAG unique identification numbers, making the relationships with other databases of the government easier.
Until now only government agencies and private parties that promise not to use it commercially or to sell the BAG-use data, but by February 1 will also receive commercial parties against payment of access to this database, so reports the central Government. The data may also be reused and resold.
According to the central Government to apply this approach in the Dutch and European commitment to public sector information ‘in an easy and cheap way to make it public. Especially companies and service providers would benefit from this information because they may use in, for example, applications for smartphones and tablets.