Government to be quizzed over UK address database

The parliamentary-industry group European Information Society Group (Eurim) will this week question the government on who will take ownership of a national address database and how it will be managed.

A spokesman for Eurim said: "The group is currently working on a number of questions to help clarify the objectives of the ID card program. [This includes] ownership of the register and the data sharing relationship that will enable it to be used. It's an objective to pull questions together - really rather a dry exercise."

According to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the National Spatial Address Infrastructure (NSAI) will be maintained through partnerships of address and property identifiers. Central and local government will work with the Ordnance Survey group to create the database.

Eurim is yet to formalise the questions, and although Jim Lound, chairman of Eurim's Personal Identity and Data Sharing Group, has supported the NSAI, he also voiced his concern over how the database will be managed.

In a recent report to Eurim members, entitled The Response to the NSAI Prospectus, Lound wrote: "Early indications show that there are significant anomalies in the data held across many well-recognised, property related databases. This leads us to believe that there is a requirement for a solid exercise to confirm these findings and also identify their likely causes, in a form that can be used with departments across government."

In the report, Lound asks about the purpose of the NSAI, who will use it and what security measures will be put in place. Eurim's questions to the government are expected to be similar in nature.