France is to release a national database of geo-localized addresses in Open Data in 2015, gathering data from La Poste (French national postal service), la Direction générale des Finances publiques (DGFIP – which manages public finance in France) and the National Institute of Geographic and Forestry Information (IGN - Institut National de l’information Géographique et Forestière). Etalab, which is in charge of Open Data policy in France, the SGMAP (Secrétariat Général pour la Modernisation de l’Action Publique) and OpenStreetMap France are also involved in this project, which goes by the name BAN (Base d’Adresses Nationale).
With BAN, each address in France will be linked to geographical coordinates. It represents a “key infrastructure for the economy, society and public services”, Etalab said on its website.
BAN will contain data from a common database developed by La Poste, IGN and DGFIP containing 25 million addresses. The volume of data will be increased by citizens’ contributions and by information from French administrations, through a national portal. Etalab said that this partnership will gradually be extended to other entities dealing with addresses.
Data will be accessible in dual mode: free of charge (but where contributions are mandatory) or via paid access, with no obligation to share or contribute. Data will be published under numerous licences - OdBl will be supported, for example.
“This new model where public authorities and civil society are partnering to produce, make available to everyone and support a key infrastructure for the economy and society is a great step forward. After data.gouv.fr, it is a new form of collaboration between the state and civil society that we are inaugurating today”, Henri Verdier, Director of Etalab and CDO of the French government said.
BANO involved in BAN
BANO (Base d’Adresses Ouvertes – Open addresses database) will also be integrated in BAN. BANO was developed separately by an association called OpenStreetMap France, because La Poste and IGN, which had already developed a common address database for themselves, but sold it as a service, have different interests. BANO compiled addresses from local administrations, land registry (Casdastre) and FANTOIR (DGFIP datasets), La Gazette des communes said on its website.
More information
BANO on the Etalab site:
https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/base-d-adresses-nationale-ouverte-bano/