Usable beneficial ownership data
Appendix I. Data feature assessment table
| Feature name | Type | Description |
Feature exists (Fully, Partially, or Not at all) |
Explanation | Recommendations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search by company name and ID | Search | People are able to search by a company name or its identifier and retrieve information about its beneficial owners. | |||
| Search by beneficial owner name and ID | Search | People can search by a person’s name or a personal identifier and retrieve information about the companies of which the person is a beneficial owner. | |||
| Search by other details | Search | People can enter characteristics of a company or a person (beyond their name or identifier) into a form, and see matching results. | |||
| Bulk data download(s) of the full dataset | Delivery | There is a single file or set of files containing all the beneficial ownership data held in the register. People can download these files. | |||
| API access | Delivery | There is a documented application programming interface (API). People or systems can retrieve beneficial ownership data for companies via API requests. | |||
| Structured data in a well-used format | Delivery | Information is broken down into predictably formatted data-points or fields. The data is supplied in JSON, CSV, XML, or some other well-recognised format. | |||
| Change alerts | Delivery | There is a service which alerts people when information is updated. People can subscribe to notifications about changes to a particular company, person, or relationship. | |||
| Clear field and object descriptions | Content | There is documentation which helps people understand the meaning of the data. | |||
| Conformance to a data standard | Content | Data conforms to a data standard for beneficial ownership information. | |||
| Use of relevant data standards | Content | Data is presented using standard codelists, formats, or encodings. People can use their existing knowledge of data standards to understand the data. | |||
| Authoritative company identifiers | Content | There are reliable identifiers for all companies and other legal vehicles represented in the data. The identifiers are presented alongside an unambiguous reference to the issuing authority and they are authoritative. Authoritative company identifiers are those created on the formation of the legal vehicle, such as a company number or tax identification number. In some contexts, the internationally recognised legal entity identifier (LEI) may be considered authoritative. | |||
| Authoritative personal identifiers | Content | There are reliable identifiers for people who are represented in the data. The identifiers are presented alongside an unambiguous reference to the issuing authority, and they are authoritative. Authoritative personal identifiers are those which are connected to a person’s nationality, citizenship, or right of residence in a country, such as an ID card number or passport number. | |||
| Basic company information | Content | The basic characteristics of companies and legal vehicles are included in the data. This includes, as a minimum: their name and legal form. | |||
| Relevant person information | Content | Relevant characteristics of people are included in the data. This includes, as a minimum: their name, nationalities, month and year of birth, and country (or countries) of residence. | |||
| Basic relationship information | Content | The basic details of relationships between companies and people are included in the data. This includes, as a minimum: who the relationship is between, what types of interest constitute the relationship, whether the relationship is direct or indirect, the magnitude of the interests (where relevant), and when the relationship (or its constituent interests) started and ended. | |||
| Basic disclosure information | Content | Basic details about how the information was disclosed is included in the data. This includes, as a minimum: who is responsible for disclosing the information, and when they disclosed the information. | |||
| Disambiguated companies | Content | Information relating to a single company in bulk or aggregated data can be unambiguously identified. This may be achieved via use of an authoritative company identifier, via the structure of the data, via an internal system identifier, or via some other means. | |||
| Disambiguated people | Content | Information relating to a single person in bulk or aggregated data can be unambiguously identified. This may be achieved via use of an authoritative person identifier, via the structure of the data, via an internal system identifier, or via some other means. | |||
| Legal ownership or intermediary data | Scope | The data can be used to understand beneficial ownership networks. If beneficial ownership is maintained via an intermediate legal vehicle (or vehicles), at least one intermediary is clearly identified in the data. | |||
| Includes non-compliant and exempt companies | Scope | Companies or legal vehicles which are not required to disclose their beneficial owners (or which have not complied with the requirement to do so) are identified within the data. | |||
| Up-to-date information | Scope | Included in the data about companies, people, and their relationships is the latest known information. | |||
| Historical information | Scope | Information about beneficial ownership relationships in the past, and the characteristics of related companies and people, is available. |