2. www.sti-innsbruck.at
The platform
• An entry (URI) for every corporate legal entity in the world
– based on company registration ID (company number and jurisdiction)
• Basic Information and Additional Information
– Official Register Entries, Tax Numbers etc.
• Licensed under Open Database License
– http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/
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3. www.sti-innsbruck.at
Features
• Company Search
– Filter by criteria as jurisdiction, data held, current status, company type, …
– Search for officers/directors *new*
• Google Refinere conciliation service (specific to jurisdiction)
– Allows everyone to match company names to legal corporate entities
– Matching (or reconciling) to legal entities allows to get more information about the
companies (for example the registered address or statutory filings), and makes it
easier to match with other datasets or exchange with other organizations
• OpenCorporates API
– Allows the free use of the platform data
• User contributed data
– Users can now add Web sites, telephone numbers, and addresses
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4. www.sti-innsbruck.at
How is data collected?
1. OpenCorporates uses official sources where possible
– e.g. company registers
2. OpenCorporates leverages the open data community and
ScraperWiki
– to scrape company registers around the world
3. OpenCorporates works with governments all over the world to help
understand the problems
– EU, World Bank, G20 Financial Stability Board, etc.
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5. www.sti-innsbruck.at
Problems
• Getting the data
– Company registers have forgotten their main role as public record, and actively work
to prohibit free and open access to the data
• Understanding the data
– Language, legal and cultural issues, and the complexity of the subject
• Normalizing the data
– How to abstract company types, status, industry codes, addresses etc.
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