Having a public and easily accessed database of consumers' most recent addresses can be a major help when undertaking a contact data quality project.

Phil Rothwell writes for Postcode Anywhere that the Dutch postal service shared its "key register" of buildings and addresses in December and allowed users to access the information -- including postal codes -- "without additional conditions."

Rothwell notes that there has been a call in the UK for many years to similarly make addresses, names and postcodes available in the region, and that both sides have valid arguments for and against an open data policy.

"An open registry would stimulate more efficient and consistent use of address information as a national, public asset," he explains. But on the flipside, the Royal Mail's PAF dataset is a commercial product that "takes money to maintain -- money currently generated through private sales of the data."

Earlier this year, Royal Mail rolled out its Postcode Address File compliance centre, which aims to serve as a resource for PAF licence solutions providers as they work to capitalize on their investments. Royal Mail notes that its PAF contains 1.8 million postcodes and nearly 29 million addresses. It updates 100,000 records on a monthly basis.