Atmo: Irish countryside, van driving, postman singing an Irish tune
Jim: Ok Rachel... So it's uh...that's the first one...it's the fourth house down.
Rachel: Fourth house on the right.
Jim: Yeah. There's a black post box out at the gate. Ok girls.
Rachel: One... two... three...
Music - Irish
Rachel: It's a glorious sunny day – perfect for winding through the lanes of the Irish countryside. Green fields to the left, green fields to the right, and a bright green postal van in front.
Rachel: Black post box... Oh that one, yeah.
Rachel: We're following a postman named Jim on his rounds delivering mail to the people of Thurles.
Charli: Sorry, was that number four?
Rachel: I think so. We would like to apologize to the people of Thurles that their post might come a bit late today!
Rachel: Charli is doing her best to navigate the country roads in a rental car.
Atmo: Crashing sound
Rachel: Ah! Did we get cattle grid insurance?
Rachel: But it doesn't help that Jim's direction can be a little... confusing.
Jim: You can go out to the top of the lane and turn left and stop at the first house on the left-hand side.
Rachel: So we're going right to the end of the lane.
Jim: Yeah.
Rachel: Turning left...
Jim: No. When you go up to the very top of the lane, take a right and you'll go down a hill. Pull to the first house on the left-hand side.
Rachel: You heard it, right – he definitely said turn left?!
Music ends
Anyway, why are we on a mission to deliver post in rural Ireland? It's got to do with something on the mail. Something that looks a little different depending on where you are. Your post code.
Music - curious
After listening to this episode, I promise you’re going to look a little longer at that string of digits the next time you pick up a letter.
Pam: This data is not meant to be used to discriminate against people.
Rachel: Post codes can be practical, cultural or political.
Mahesh: We have extreme income inequality, which is leading to political polarization and a distrust in institutions.
Rachel: And your ZIP code is a little window into who you are.
Pam: How much money they make, their home address, how many kids they have, what are their medical conditions?
SFX: Whispering
Rachel: It tells your secrets. I’m honestly not exaggerating when I say it could be shaping your destiny.
Ayesha: Your zip code determines your quality of life and how long you're going to live.
Rachel: I'm Rachel Stewart and you're listening to Don't Drink the Milk, the podcast that puts the wow factor back into your everyday life by asking questions about the things we sometimes take for granted.
JINGLE
Rachel: So today we're on the trail of the zip code, or post code. Or, as it's known in Ireland...
Jim: ...the Eircode
Rachel: Eircode. Éire is the Gaelic word for Ireland. And that's why we've come all this way. The Eircode is one of the world's youngest postal code systems. It was introduced in 2015 and has been gradually rolled out since then. So, how did they deliver post before that?
Jim: Local knowledge. You'll never beat it. Local knowledge is essential.
Rachel: I'm sure local knowledge is pretty important for most postal workers. But rural Ireland is on another level. Because around a third of addresses aren't unique – some properties don't even have a name or a number. So you wouldn't be able to just look for number three or number four on such-and-such lane. You'd actually need to recognize the names of the people living there.
Jim: This is where I grew up. Yeah, it wasn't a lot for us to do when we were young at that stage, but that's how we got to know everybody. No mobile phones, and we cycled around on every road.
Rachel: How many people around here do you know? What percentage of your postal route do you reckon you know the people?
Jim: 100 %
Rachel: Really?
Jim: Yes, I would.
Rachel: By name. By first name, surname.
Jim: I would. I would. And probably 75 % of their wives' maiden names, you'd get to know them. We don't go too far looking for men or women around here.
Rachel: It sounds kind of nostalgic and a little romantic - the friendly local postie going about his rounds, greeting all the neighbors like old friends...
Jim: Well Bridget, how are you? I've a crew with me today.
Atmo: Dogs barking
Rachel: But in areas like this, it's about more than getting your mail.
Jim: Every day I go into a house, it looks the same. And if something is different about it, I know straight away. So God forbid if somebody had died or was sick and a curtain wasn't opened back or whatever, something simple, I'll take it straight away.
Rachel: So how important would you say community is for your job?
Jim: Oh huge. Massive. especially the rural community for like that. Because a lot of people living down lanes, down country lanes, wouldn't see a lot of people from one end of the week to the other.
Rachel: In a way, the country's reluctance to slap an official code on their mail is reflective of this community-minded attitude. Sure, it might take a little longer to deliver something if you have to ask around a bit first, but so what?
Atmo: van pulling up
Rachel: Looking at the mail in Jim's van, not that many people seem to be using the new code.
Jim: They don't...a lot of people don't. They do.
Rachel: It's not mandatory, and Jim explains most people use if they want a parcel delivered, and not so much if they're writing a letter to a friend. But he does say it's made things easier, even for a local like him.
Jim: Yeah, if somebody new moves into the area, the post code, that's where it kicks in. Pop on the phone, type in the Eircode and it'll bring us right to the spot.
Atmo: Cow moos
Rachel: We've taken a detour into a field of calves. Super cute little baby cows.
Jim: Try this one Rachel!
Rachel: Jim's now being licked by a calf.
Atmo: licking sounds
Jim: Only in Ireland. Only in Loughmore!
Rachel: I like it, you don't just know the neighbors. You know the animals.
Jim: Yeah I know 'em all. Unfortunately they can't talk. They'd tell me what goes on here in the night-time if they could.
Rachel: Do you think they know their Eircode?
Jim: Hahaha, yeah!!
Music - Irish
So, Ireland has one of the newest postcode systems in the world, but who has the oldest?
SFX: radio tuning
Music - London Victorian
Some cities, like London and Manchester in the UK, had local codes as early as the mid-19th century. But the first country-wide system appears in...
SFX: radio tuning
Music - Ukraine
...Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s. But there's not much information about it, and it actually seems to disappear just a few years later. Something similar next crops up...
SFX radio tuning sound, music switches to somber wartime vibes
...in Nazi Germany. Mail was extremely important and being sent in high volume during the Second World War. But qualified postal staff, with that all-important local knowledge, were increasingly hard to come by. The proposed solution was to hurriedly usher in a postal code or "Postleitzahl" in the early 1940s.
What happens to the German post code after the war reflects the reality of a country split in two – East and West Germany.
Music - Soviet 60s
By the early 60s, both sides had introduced their own more precise 4-digit codes. West Germany reserved some number combinations for eastern cities, apparently in the hopes the country would one day be reunited. But the east did not reciprocate, leading to confusing duplications. For example, 5300 was used for the capital city Bonn in the west, but also for Weimar in the East. One newspaper later referred to it as a "Cold War of the post code."
Music out
Nevertheless, overall the concept was pretty practical. Soon post codes would start catching on all around the world – with a few variations in look and name. In 1963, the United States Postal Service unveiled the "Zone Improvement Plan" - aka the ZIP code.
Zip code advert:
Singers: ZIP Code!
Announcer: During this holiday season, the post office would like you to help them get your mail through faster.
Singers: ZIP Code, ZIP Code!
Announcer: Put the ZIP on every letter.
Singers: ZIP Code, ZIP Code!
Announcer: Your mail will get there better.
Singers: It will move without delay. It’s the perfect way to get the mail to where it’s going. ZIP Code, ZIP Code!
Announcer: ZIP up this holiday season.
Rachel: This is just one example of the wacky marketing strategies used to promote the new system. There were ballads, swing tunes, sketches featuring overwhelmed postal workers and, the star of the show, a cartoon character named Mr Zip.
Announcer: ZIP code moves the mail.
Singer: Shop early!
Rachel: Why go to all this effort? Well, it seems the American public wasn't in love with the idea of another set of numbers to memorize. They'd only just had an area code added to their telephone numbers, now this?!
Music out
In one of the beloved Peanuts cartoon strips at the time, Charlie Brown is introduced to a little boy called 555 95472 – or 5 for short. He explains:
Cartoon strip: "My dad says we have so many numbers these days, we're all losing our identity."
Music - USA 60s
Rachel: That's how the codes made some people feel. There were apparently even whispers of a Communist plot to undermine the individualistic American culture. But the motivation behind post codes really was to make mail delivery faster and more efficient.
Music - mysterious
Rachel: However, as with so many things, this new invention would set off a chain of unintended consequences that even reaches into our lives today.
Music ends
Mahesh: You move to a new city, you're invited to a cocktail party, you don't know anybody, they don't know you. So they start asking you questions – to kind of size up who you are, what you believe in, where you are in the status hierarchy. In Chicago, it's funny because they don't merely ask you what neighborhood do you live in, they ask you what intersection do you live at. That really speaks to how ingrained geography is in the DNA of Chicagoans and how geography means so much to who you are as a person in Chicago.
Rachel: And what does your intersection say about you?
Mahesh: That I'm a geeky academic that goes to bed at 9pm.
Rachel: This geeky academic is Mahesh Somashekhar. He's an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois in Chicago. We've got onto the topic of zip codes and identity, and we got here via this...
TV Clip: 90210
Daughter: You know, I'm not anybody here. I have no clothes.
Mother: Honey, just because we live here doesn't mean we take our cues from these people. I mean, we're not their clones.
Daughter: Relax, mother. I don't think you have any worries in that area. You're a unique fashion statement here.
Son: Yeah, Mrs Green Jeans moves to Beverly Hills!
Music – TV tune
Rachel: The 90s TV drama where the ZIP code was so vital to the characters and storylines, they put it right there in the title: Beverly Hills, 90210. The idea of the zip code acting as a label of wealth, it's something Mahesh has seen play out in real life, in his own city.
Mahesh: There's a place in Chicago, the wealthiest zip code, or one of the wealthiest zip codes, and there's a condo right on the street that calls itself something like "the Parker 60614" or something like that. So it's definitely, I think, has some caché which ZIP code you live in.
Rachel: It's not just about money. Where you grow up can affect so many parts of your life – and not always for the better.
Mahesh: A ZIP code can have a tremendous influence on your life chances - which housing is available to you, which schools are available to you, which hospitals are available to you, the quality of the food that's available to you.
Rachel: Research in the US shows shocking inequality between ZIP codes, sometimes within the same city, sometimes just blocks apart.
Music - tense
Rachel: In 2019, researchers found the difference in average life expectancy between two Chicago ZIP codes to be 30 years...And you can see similar patterns with things like education and household income. But can we really blame the ZIP code? Do poorer people happen to live in a certain ZIP code, or are they poor because they live in that ZIP code?
Mahesh: Social scientists were kind of obsessed with it in the 1990s – is this correlation or causation? So they created something called the "Moving to Opportunity" experiment.
Rachel: "Moving to Opportunity." Participants from low-income neighborhoods in several cities across the United States were given housing vouchers to move to a higher-income area. Would the same person living in a different ZIP code end up with a different outcome? More than 30 years on, the answer seems to be: yes. People who moved when they were very young are doing better.
Mahesh: Better mental health outcomes, job success and so on... I think this all kind of highlights in a kind of a causal way that when poor people are given the opportunity to thrive, they will. And many poor people are unfortunately stuck in their poor neighborhoods or ZIP codes they can't get out of.
Rachel: So, it seems your ZIP code really can have a hand in your destiny.
Music out
Rachel: Mahesh uses this term I hadn't heard before – "opportunity hoarding".
Mahesh: It sounds exactly like it is that if you're wealthy, if you're powerful, you're going to hoard the kinds of opportunities available to you, the amenities that are available to you, and not necessarily share them. Now, that can happen maliciously, but it can also happen in more mundane and not so malicious ways.
Rachel: Let's start with the malicious ways...
Mahesh: So through the 1980s, in certain parts of the U.S., it was even legal that if a white homeowner was going to sell their house to another white homeowner, they could legally write into the deed that when you are done with the house and it's your turn to sell, you promise that you will only sell to a white person or you're not allowed to sell to a non-white person.
Rachel: Ok that's... pretty malicious. But what about what Mahesh calls the more "mundane" ways this inequality is reinforced?
Mahesh: So look, I'm a parent. I have two children, I want the best for them, I want them to go to the best school possible. It's a natural tendency for all of us. But of course, only certain parents can afford to live in certain kinds of ZIP codes that have the best schools possible. And so even in these kind of mundane choices we make of leaving our low income or mixed income, middle class, neighborhood, what have you, to move into that wealthy neighborhood, because it's really important to us that our child go to the best school, you're leaving the low-income people behind in your quest for your family's best interests.
Rachel: But of course, it's not all down to us, deciding whether we put social progress ahead of our own children's education. A lot of these problems also stem from years of misguided or even overtly racist policy and urban planning. Policies like redlining.
Mahesh: Redlining comes from this idea that in the middle of the 20th century, the federal housing administration was creating maps of where they were willing to back home loans that were given to individuals, and they refused to give home loans to - not only to any non-white individual but also if it was a neighborhood that even had one non-white individual living in it they would strike it with a red line. That's crossing a line we will not cross which led to a lot of this geography of inequality that we're talking about and the legacy we're living with today.
Rachel: Redlining was outlawed with the Fair Housing Act of 1968. But today there are still clear examples of direct discrimination – how your ZIP code can either exclude you from opportunities or make you a target. This might be subtle...
Mahesh: Amazon deliveries, DoorDash, Uber drivers – it's been known that they will avoid going into certain kinds of ZIP codes or certain kinds of neighborhoods because they're scared to go in, they lean into stereotypes.
Rachel: Or it might be very intentional...
Mahesh: We have evidence that in the lead up to the Great Recession, there were predatory loan companies that were targeting poor neighborhoods, black and brown neighborhoods, with subprime mortgages. These are mortgages that have higher interest rates than normal, sometimes variable interest rates that can change over time, that were being offered to people with risky credit who otherwise couldn't own a home. They quickly defaulted in many cases, maybe shouldn't have owned a home in the first place, but on a massive scale that led to our foreclosure crisis that ultimately then fed into the Great Recession.
Rachel: And then there's what Mahesh and other researchers refer to as "digital redlining" – recalling those hugely discriminatory policies from the 50s.
Mahesh: If you go on the internet and you search "colleges near me," prestigious universities are more likely to advertise to web searchers in wealthy ZIP codes, whereas predatory for-profit schools are more likely to advertise in poor ZIP codes. So, it really impacts the daily life of so many people.
Music out
Ayesha: So for me, it was definitely, realizing that we had to drive outside of our community to get a full service grocery store. We had to leave our community to shop for clothes and other things or any amenities, quite frankly, movie theaters, et cetera. Arts programming, dance programming. They were not accessible in my area.
Rachel: I'm chatting to Ayesha Jaco, who grew up in one of Chicago's most deprived neighborhoods.
Ayesha: I noticed the high rates of violence in my community. And then just some of the resources that we did not have.
Rachel: She tells me how, if we took a trip together on public transport from downtown to the West Side, I wouldn't be able to miss these signs of inequality.
Ayesha: ...the housing stock and conditions of the neighborhood, more empty lots, underdeveloped or undeveloped properties. You can map out the grocery stores, the quality of grocery stores – full service stores versus corner food and liquor stores or what some may call bodegas. They're more prevalent in communities that have the lower life expectancy.
Rachel: Ayesha has seen these disparities around her all her life. Today, she's the director of a collective called "West Side United" whose goal it is to improve the lives and prospects of Chicago's West Side residents.
They focus on 10 of the ZIP codes in Chicago with the lowest life expectancies. Of course, health care is a big priority. But how long people live is tied up in so many other things – from money and education to green spaces and walkability.
Ayesha: We're talking about 60 years of disinvestment. And so in order to reverse that, you need a long-term strategy to combat what was put in place over time via policy, etc.
Music - positive
Rachel: The project brings together hospitals, schools, faith groups, businesses and government agencies to encourage local investment and development. Because why should you have to leave your community in order to get a better chance in life?
Ayesha: We are a city of neighborhoods here in Chicago. Each of them are different. The music is different, the culture. The type of food you'll find, the type of shops you find. Westsiders are very proud. They love their communities. They have pride in their family's histories, legacies in those areas – but they do want better.
Music out
Rachel: Ok, so if the ZIP code has ended up doing so much damage as a label... do we really need it? Is there some kind of alternative that would do the job better?
Mahesh: So anytime you use these broad identity categories, whether we're talking about a racial group like white or black, or we could even be talking about a neighborhood, right? These things get very political because you're kind of grouping people in this kind of artificial way and treating it as if it's real even though it's socially constructed. And so I can see the motivation for trying to avoid that...
Rachel: This is Mahesh again, and I can feel a but coming...
Mahesh: But then, in order to count people and think about which groups are underserved, which groups are growing, which groups are shrinking, which groups are dying at a faster rate than others – in order to make any of those kinds of distinctions that are critical for public health, that are critical for education, you need to actually do that sort of grouping.
Rachel: In the hands of researchers or policymakers, information grouped by ZIP code can be helpful. But not everyone has such good intentions. More on that, after this quick break.
SFX: money counter & music - flashy
TRAILER: Scene on Radio - Capitalism
Rachel: Ok, back to ZIP codes. We've already dug into how your ZIP code can reflect you and your circumstances or even shape them. But there's one more piece to this disconcerting puzzle: your data.
SFX: Digital
Pam: I Just don't think that people understand how impactful the giving of a ZIP code can be.
Rachel: This is Pam Dixon. She's the founder of the World Privacy Forum, a non-profit research group. So, privacy is her thing. And she's telling me why some people really want to get their hands on our ZIP codes.
Pam: ZIP code has been used for direct marketing since the 1960s...
Rachel: You know, product catalogues in the post, that kind of thing.
Pam: So it's not new. What is new and what has been growing exponentially is the use of aggregate statistics – and zip code is a huge aspect of this – to do very detailed analysis on people and groups of people.
Rachel: Remember how Mahesh pointed out the beneficial side of this kind of group analysis? Well, that's not what Pam's talking about. She means companies who want to turn your data into money.
Music - curious
Rachel: There's so much digital information floating around about us – in online records, digital transactions, social media activity... A lot of that information could be relatively harmless on its own. But if all those bits of information are linked together, to build a really accurate picture of who you are – your interests, beliefs, needs, vulnerabilities... That's marketing gold. So, how can companies tie all that information together?
Pam: All of this stuff can be added when you have that magical key of the ZIP code.
Rachel: The magical key of the ZIP code. Have you ever been in a shop and the cashier has asked you for your ZIP code when paying? Maybe you didn't think twice about it or just assumed it was needed for your credit card payment to go through. But...
Pam: ...if you have a ZIP code and you can add the ZIP code to the credit card number and the name, you can precisely target that individual and all the demographic information that goes along with that individual.
Rachel: The ZIP code allows the retailer to tap into all the other piles of digital information that exist about you. Piles of information which they purchase from data brokers...
Pam: ...which are companies that buy and sell information about people, and not necessarily information you want to be sold... Data brokers are operating digitally and they're very, very advanced digital users. So we're really talking about a very complex AI -fueled ecosystem of data and information that pervades our digital lives.
Rachel: Pam says the kind of information that can be accessed about a customer in this way is alarmingly detailed.
Pam: ...how much money they make, their home address, how many kids they have, do they have college debt, what are their medical conditions? It can be literally billions of data points that they have gathered.
Rachel: So the zip code is basically a really effective tool that allows AI to quickly sort through that treasure trove of information and pull together all the bits that relate to one person.
Music out
Rachel: Under California law, retailers are generally prohibited from requesting or requiring a customer's personal details, like their ZIP code, in order to complete a credit card transaction. In fact, California has some pretty stringent data privacy laws in general, more in line with those in Europe.
But, California is pretty much the exception in the US. And, there's another problem. Please excuse me while I mix metaphors... You see, zip codes are not just the "magic key" to unlocking all sorts of other data about you. They're also a smoke screen, a loophole, an invisibility cloak. Because as soon as you use the ZIP code:
Pam: ...You're not looking at an individual. So therefore, you are completely out of regulation.
Rachel: Data privacy regulations tend to focus on the individual. ZIP codes per se are not individual, because there are usually lots of people living in any one code. So, even though zip codes can help unlock a lot of private information about an individual person, individual data privacy regulation doesn't usually apply. This means companies can store and use all the information they've gathered in this way.
Music - curious
Pam: Collective privacy is something that has been left out of almost every privacy discussion. There are some exceptions to that, especially in the indigenous world.
Rachel: For example the Maori people in New Zealand. They have a treaty agreeing some special collective data privacy rights. But these exceptions are pretty rare.
Rachel: All this information gathering happens in the blink of an eye. Artificial intelligence allows vast amounts of data to be sorted and evaluated in seconds. And these days, most direct marketing happens online, where it's almost impossible to trace how exactly you ended up on that advertiser's radar.
Pam: We don't need to stop ZIP codes. That's not the point. What we need to stop is the improper use of the data in our lives. How can we use this information in a way that helps people, doesn't harm them?
Music out
Atmo: Talking to people in Ireland
Rachel: Back in Thurles, Ireland, word has spread that some journalists are following the post man around for the day.
Man in garden: So you'll have a great day following Jim around.
Rachel: We've been slowing him down though! He's been trying to go fast and we keep drivigng too slowly for him! So he's gone off to do a bit on his own now...
Rachel: I take the opportunity to gauge local opinion on the new postcode.
Rachel: Can I ask, do you know your own Eircode?
Man: Uh... EH41... uh... GTTH1... I'll just... I'll get it.
Rachel: Ok, it seems not everyone knows it by heart. The neighbor dashes inside to find the letter he got about it – probably pinned on the fridge for safe-keeping.
Woman: We haven't had them that long, a few years.
Rachel: But overall, the reactions seemed quite positive.
Man: Yes I know my own. It's useful. It took a while to get going. But it's took off now and it's very good.
Man: It's very handy for the couriers. My wife gets great use out of it.
Woman: When you're looking for something to get delivered the first thing they say is what's your Eircode. Much easier, yeah!
Music - quirky
Pat: I'm a big address nerd yeah. I just like anything to do with the location part of it, which is strange really because I have zero sense of direction.
Rachel: We've headed into Dublin to meet Pat Donnelly, who was involved in the initial design and rollout of the Eircode system in Ireland back in 2015. While we're there, he lets slip some top-secret information.
Pat: There is a spreadsheet of very naughty words... But it's locked away.
Rachel: Ah yes, one of the pitfalls of creating any new code, particularly one with letters and numbers...
Pat: A one looks like an I, a zero looks like an O. So you can make words up there...
Rachel: Words like [beep] or [beep].
Pat: So what we did was we got all the valid words from Scrabble and then...Then we had to get imaginative then and asked Gaeilgeoirs, Irish speakers, to give us all of the words that they would find offensive in Irish. We went to Urban Dictionary. We just kind of, you know, it was quite traumatic for the team. We just had to come up with every kind of word that you might want to restrict.
Music out
Rachel: Ok, naughty words aside, how do you actually go about designing a system like this from scratch? With so many different postcode systems in use all over the world, there was plenty of inspiration to go off. But the way Pat sees it, every country needs a code tailored to their specific needs and culture.
Pat: There's a lot of culture involved in a post code.
Music - Irish
Rachel: The solution that Pat and his team came up with for Ireland is quite unusual – perhaps even unique in the world. The first three characters are a rough area code, but the final four characters make the Eircode specific to a single property, even a single apartment within a building. Pat says this was vital, because of the quirks of the Irish address system. So, remember how I said how some properties don't actually have any kind of identifying name or number?
Pat: The only way you know how to get there is the person's name at the top. So it's absolutely impossible to figure out how to get to that house by just putting it into Google Maps.
Rachel: Without the codes, an address might read like: Patrick O'Hare, Ballybeg, Ballinglen, County Wicklow. And Irish addresses even allow a little room for individual creative interpretation.
Pat: There isn't an official version of any address. So I know people that live in the same house, husband and wife, and they would write the address differently.
Rachel: Now, add some typically Irish directions to the mix...
Pat: ...Well you go past the two big trees and then you'll see two sheep on the left, like the sheep will always be there. And then when you've gone to the Red House, you've gone too far...
Rachel: ...and I guess you can see the benefit of a specific, unique code that will take you exactly where you want to go. I mean, you certainly don't want the ambulance to have to stop and ask for directions on its way to you.
Pat: You hear random stories from people about how you know the ambulance got there quicker and their uncle or aunt or whoever you know managed to pull through.
Music out
Rachel: There were also commercial motivations for Ireland getting on the post code bandwagon. For example, private courier companies being able to deliver parcels without that local knowledge. Or insurance companies offering more accurate quotes for flood risk.
And one more thing about the code itself. The final four digits aren't just unique – they're also entirely random. So two neighbors living right next door will have completely different code endings. One reason for this, Pat explains, is to avoid some of the problems that have cropped up next door in the UK.
Pat: School boundaries, school districts cause lots of problems in the UK. You have to move into the postcode in order to, you know, be in the right district for the school.
Rachel: This kind of issue is often referred to as the "post code lottery" in the UK, where your access to certain services might change due to an arbitrary postcode boundary.
Music - pensive
And what about privacy concerns?
Pat: There hasn't, that I'm aware of anyway, been a misuse of the data or any issues with combinations of different data sets that shouldn't be combined... I think most of the concerns that people might have had pre-launch didn't materialize. So now it's just, yeah, it's just some letters and numbers at the bottom of your address, nothing to be afraid of.
Rachel: Maybe the Irish system has finally cracked the code - all the practical benefits with none of the unintended consequences. Or perhaps the system just hasn't been around long enough for the loopholes to emerge.
Music out
Atmo: Car pulling up
Rachel: As we pull up for the very last stop on Jim's route, we of course bump into one a relative of his.
Jim: Oh here's Margaret! This is my sister-in-law.
Rachel: Oh so nice to meet you!
Rachel: And Margaret makes us an off we can't refuse.
Margaret: So do you want to come in for tea?
Rachel & Charli: Oh thank you!
Margaret: I don't know what the house is like...
Atmo: Door opening
Margaret: The best tea comes out of a pot.
Atmo: Tea pouring
Zip codes ballad
Singer: My true love’s many faces, many places you see; the city, the country, the sea. Wherever my true love may take it to be; now ZIP Code will find her for me.
Rachel: This episode was written and produced by me, Rachel Stewart. It was edited by Sam Baker, fact checked by Rayna Breuer, and lovingly scrutinized by Charli Shield and Chris Caurla. Final mix by Christian Stäter. I feel like after this episode, you should probably write us a letter. But an email will do – so get in touch at dontdrinkthemilk@dw.com. We'll be back in 2 weeks. Bring your beret and your gardening gloves.
Zip codes ballad
Singer: Wherever my true love may take it to be; now ZIP Code will find her for me. Oh ZIP code, please find her for me.
Music out