About G-NAF®
For the first time, it is possible to locate the exact position of all physical addresses in Australia, with the Geocoded National Address File (G-NAF ®).
G-NAF ® is the only authoritative national index of locality, street and number, validated with geographic coordinates. This cutting-edge information index can:
- streamline business operations through more accurate customer mailing lists or more direct delivery routes
- improve emergency services responses by pinpointing exact addresses
- enhance government services through more precise demographic analysis
- reduce crime such as identity fraud by verifying addresses.
Access to G-NAF ® is through PSMA Australia’s Value Added Resellers, who develop and market a range of products using G-NAF ® data. While G-NAF ® is a very high quality address index it is only part of the solution. This value added approach enables users to not only gain access to the best available address index in Australia but also the software and systems that make solutions complete.
The authoritative address index
G-NAF ® is an electronic index developed by PSMA Australia. It consolidates digital data from more than 13 government bodies across Australia.
Using world-first methodology, G-NAF ® links textual and spatial data to verify the existence of each Australian address and identify its unique latitude and longitude coordinates, or geocode.
This cross checking identifies duplications, errors, alias and vanity addresses to reduce the 30 million addresses from multiple sources to an index of 12.6 million verified addresses.
Using multiple sources leads to a level of confidence about addresses in G-NAF ® – the more often an address occurs, the higher the level of confidence.
Importantly G-NAF ® differentiates between an official or principle address and an incorrect or alias address and stores the link between them. This ensures a much higher match when G-NAF ® is incorporated into an address matching software engine.
To protect privacy, G-NAF ® does not include any identifying information such as business names or business types.
Until now, verifying and locating the exact position of the millions of addresses in Australia has been a challenge. This is because addresses are open to interpretation and lack the mathematical consistency needed for rigorous matching, analysis and verification.
PSMA Australia built and maintains G-NAF ® through a partnership with technical experts, LogicaCMG and Geometry.
The following PDF resources provide more background on G-NAF ®:
- G-NAF_What_Why_Who_When.pdf (588KB)
Other articles about G-NAF ®: