Entity risk tagging

People, companies, vessels and securities in OpenSanctions are associated with various forms of business risk: they could be designated on a sanctions list, linked to a crime, or be subject to enhanced scrutiny because they hold public office.

In order to determine the nature of the risk linked to an entity in OpenSanctions, you can rely on various forms of tags that detail the reason for the entity'sinclusion in the database. This page explains how to find what you are looking for, and make sense of what you find.

Topics

Topics are used to classify entities and indicate why they are included in a dataset. They can be used to determine the level and type of risk they represent. Some key topics include:

ID	Description
`sanction`	Sanctioned entities: Companies, people or other things that have been designated by a government in order to prohibit specific interactions with them.
`sanction.linked`	Sanction-linked entities: Companies, people or other things that have a direct relationship with a sanctioned entity. The topic also covers companies which are indirect subsidiaries of sanctioned entities, irrespective of the percentage ownership stake the sanctioned entity holds in the subsidiary.
`sanction.counter`	Counter-sanctioned: The database covers some sanctions lists from non-democratic countries which issue their own sanctions designations, often including pro-democracy activists, journalists, and human rights proponents (as well asPaul Wolfowitz).
`debarment`	Debarred entities: Companies that have been excluded from public procurement, often because they previously committed fraud in their execution of a government contract.
`role.pep`	Politically exposed persons: Currently or previously held a position of political influence. We document ourglobal coverage anddata methodology regarding PEPs.
`role.rca`	Relatives and close associates: Family members and key business associates of politically exposed persons. They are often used as nominees or front-people when a PEP attempts to hide illicit financial gains.
`poi`	Persons of interest: People where there is a public interest case for closer scrutiny, but who do not meet common definitions of a politically-exposed person and who are not sanctioned.
`reg.action`	Regulatory action: Companies that have been the subject of an enforcement action by an industry regulatory body.
`reg.warn`	Regulatory warning: Companies that have placed on a warning/alert list by an industry regulatory body.

For a full list of topics, see thedata dictionary.

The full list of risk-linked topics in use in the data right now is:

corp.disqual
crime.boss
crime.fin
crime.fraud
crime.terror
crime.theft
crime.traffick
crime.war
crime
debarment
export.control
export.risk
poi
reg.action
reg.warn
role.oligarch
role.pep
role.rca
sanction.counter
sanction.linked
sanction
wanted

Politically exposed persons

Politically-exposed persons can be sub-divided into different sub-types, depending on the level or branch of government they are active in. This information is also represented in OpenSanctions usingtopics. For more context on how we collect and structure PEP information, see ourintroduction page.

Topics linked to people

Basic information about a PEP position is represented on the Person entity itself:

All PEPs have therole.pep topic in theirtopics property.
All countries related to their PEP positions are added to theircountry property.

Topics linked to political positions

More detail is available about thepositions. This can be used to exclude certain positions based on the risk policy of your use case. This data is applied consistently when available in structured form, so that the same policies can be applied across jurisdictions as needed.

APerson is used to describe the politician themselves. When using the nested entity representation in the OpenSanctions API or thetargets.nested.json format, each person entity'spositionOccupancies property refers to all the instances of this person occupying PEP positions.

TheOccupancy entity creates a link between a person and thePosition have held. Additionally, depending on available data, it includes:

startDate - when this person started occupying this position
endDate - when this person left the position
status - whether the position is currently occupied. Seemethodology and possible values.

ThePosition entity classifies the nature of the position itself. A position is always specific to a given jurisdiction, e.g. Member of parliament in India is distinct from the Member of parliament position in Kenya. Position entities are further classified by the following properties:

All countries related to a given position are added to thecountry property
When possible, the specific subnational area is indicated in thesubnationalArea property for subnational and local positions.
Position entities have topics classifying the position according to the type and level of government they are linked to:

Key PEP categories	Role	Jurisdiction
National head of government, head of state (President, prime minister, queen)	`gov.head`	`gov.national`
National executive/cabinet	`gov.executive`	`gov.national`
National legislature	`gov.legislative`	`gov.national`
National court judges, prosecutors	`gov.judicial`	`gov.national`
Security and intelligence services including militaty, police	`gov.security`	`gov.national`
Central Bank leadership	`gov.financial`	`gov.national`
Diplomatic missions	`role.diplo`	`gov.national`
Intergovernmental organizations generally		`gov.igo`
e.g. Member of European Parliament	`gov.legislative`	`gov.igo`
e.g. Member of Board of Governors of the World Bank	`gov.financial`	`gov.igo`
Regional/sub-national head of government (Governor, Premier)	`gov.head`	`gov.state`
Regional/sub-national executive/cabinet	`gov.executive`	`gov.state`
Regional/sub-national legislature	`gov.legislative`	`gov.state`
Regional/sub-national court judges	`gov.judicial`	`gov.state`
State-owned enterprises, public entities, agencies reporting to national government	`gov.soe`	`gov.national`
State-owned enterprises, public entities, agencies reporting to regional government	`gov.soe`	`gov.state`
Political party leadership	`pol.party`
Local head of government (Mayor)	`gov.head`	`gov.muni`
Local executive (e.g. mayoral committee member)	`gov.executive`	`gov.muni`
Local legislature	`gov.legislative`	`gov.muni`

The topic representing the greatest influence is used when a position might apply to multiple roles or jurisdictions, e.g. executive is used when both legislative and executive apply.

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FAQ Understanding the data

Entity structure

Data dictionary

Identifiers and de-duplication

Matcher training data

Statement-based data

Data enrichment