Geographic Data Linking - Intuitive analytics between otherwise unrelated data stores

(image credit: http://www.eua.org.uk, Marc Hobell presentation. Mapping: Ordnance Survey 'MasterMap' and 'Addressbase' data)

A significant hurdle to interoperability of data, is a universal method of creating relationships between records. Companies and organisations typically create identifiers for assets, customers and data that is critical to their operation and management, however little, if any, consideration is given to future inter-operability with external entities.

The implications of sharing data between organisations is typically considered impractical in the best case, and in the worst case a commercial liability. What if an option existed which could both increase the flexibility of data sharing, reduce the risk of individual identification and provide an record identification capability which is removed from internal company implementation?

Every physical and living thing has a location. increasingly, where management is concerned, these are referenced with some sort of premise address, GPS coordinate or sometimes less precise location references like postcodes and census areas. Through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and information systems with spatial/geographic capability, all of these data can be associated.

There need be no previous, or obvious, relationship between these things as long as they have an identifiable location. Sometimes, connecting data at only a few critical points, can unleash a web of information that can be queried, analysed and visualised using all of the traditional business intelligence capabilities out there - this combination of geographic analysis and business analysis is Location Intelligence

In the UK, we are blessed with a strong historical base of geographic data and a lot of forward thinking individuals who have taken premise level data one step further, through management of asset lifecycle - in the form of UPRN** identification. This is a very precise method of linking data, as each premise is managed from construction to demolition for a uniquely identifiable ID, which can be relied upon for data comparisons and other data science applications on the 33 million + identifiable premises, infrastructure and assets of note within Great Britain.

Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium among other countries are also involved in the geographic tracking of assets throughout their lifecycle. In other countries with less progress towards precision and management, other methods for data linking exist like geocoding to various levels of precision and, notably, Google's 'Open Location Code' and TomTom's 'MapCode' implementations, for general use in areas with little or no precise premise-level identification such as some African countries.

For a real life application of this idea, have a look at one initiative related to utilities in the UK and the rollout of Smart Meters:

http://www.seethedetail.co.uk/smartmeters/a/pdf/Geo_May13_Viewpoint.pdf

"Adopting the UPRN could enable them to share information about a given premise without having to match commercially sensitive
datasets" ~ Marc Hobell, Pitney Bowes (formerly Ordnance Survey)

** UPRN = Unique Property Reference Number