Frequently asked questions

Many regulators require financial services companies to screen their clients against "adverse media" (also known as "negative news"). This process involves checking regulatory publications, news reports, social media discussions, and press releases for any detrimental mentions of potential customers or counterparties.

OpenSanctions does not include a comprehensive archive of news reports, social media postings, or press releases. Aggregating such content in the same manner as we publish sanctions data—as a cleaned-up bulk data bundle—would violate the copyright of content publishers, such as media companies. Additionally, it is a significant technical undertaking that requires a different skill set than the detailed data cleansing that OpenSanctions specializes in.

However, we do include adverse information from a broad set of non-sanctions watchlists, such as regulatory lists and debarment databases .

Can you recommend an adverse media provider?

Your choice will depend on various factors, so our assistance here is limited. Since OpenSanctions focuses on providing technical building blocks, here are two news aggregator APIs that follow a similar approach:

• https://newscatcherapi.com/
• https://newsapi.org/