Presentation by Chris Taggart and Mollie Hanley of OpenCorporates at the Data Journalism UK conference in Birmingham, December 2017

1. OpenCorporates
the largest open database
of companies in the world

2. Notable Investigations

3. Core Mission
Opening up data for public benefit
Entry and URI for every company in the world
Reflection of official records
2010 - 3m companies from registries in the UK, Jersey
and Bermuda
2017 - 137m companies in 125 jurisdictions

4. Open company data index

5. Viewing jurisdictions

6. Data quality
Browse all jurisdictions to view data quality issues...
Quality alerts

7. Data quality
… and click on the name
of the company register
to view details

8. Searching for companies
OpenCorporates has taken a pragmatic and (we think)
sensible approach to defining companies, as it changes from
country to country and culture to culture: a company is a
something registered by a company registry.

9. Searching for companies
Search Preview:
Jurisdiction
Date incorporated
Registered address
Previous names
Alternative names
Trademarks held

10. Filtering company searches

11. Viewing a company page

12. Viewing a company page
Crucially, all company
pages show when
and where we
sourced the data

13. Viewing a company page

14. Viewing a company page
Provenance is key!

15. Viewing a company page

16. Advanced Search - companies
Allows searching by:
Other company numbers
Registered address
Trademarks
Branches
Non-profits
Better sorting options

17. Searching for officers
OpenCorporates defines an officer as a person that has
official standing within a company, inclusive of
registered agents but excluding shareholders. In the
United Kingdom this would include roles such as
"Secretary" and "Director".

18. Searching for officers by name

19. Filtering officers

20. Searching for officers by company
Companies can hold
positions as officers - not just
individuals!

21. Advanced search - officer address
...but watch out for false positives!
Searching officers by address can be helpful..

22. API use cases
Free API key to public
benefit users
OpenRefine end point

23. Questions
http://bit.ly/ocjourno
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