Postcode information leaked on the web

The Wikileaks website is linking to what it says is a database containing information about 1.8 million postcodes in the UK.

Postcode information is owned by Royal Mail, which charges companies such as cartographers and sat-nav manufacturers to use the data.

However, the notorious website is allowling anyone to download the database in a 240MB, 100,000-plus page document.

The site describes it as a "UK government database of all 1,841,177 UK postcodes together with latitude and longitude, grid references, county, district, ward, NHS codes and regions, Ordnance Survey reference, and date of introduction."

Technically, this isn't illegal - the information is in the public domain already - but it is the fact that it has been compiled into a database that is likely to anger the Royal Mail.

The Royal Mail said that it was investigating. There is no indication as to how the database had been acquired by the site so far.