Frequently asked questions

OpenSanctions generates and publishes a comprehensive database of risk-linked entities. The term "entity of interest" is used to describe companies or people that are not directly subject to sanctions but are included in OpenSanctions for other reasons. It does not carry a specific legal meaning, and does not imply wrongdoing.

Having grown from our core focus of aggregating sanctions data, OpenSanctions also includes politically exposed persons, companies and people included in debarment databases, criminal watchlists, and other domain datasets related to corruption, money laundering and other forms of financial crime. We use data enrichment to find companies linked to sanctioned entities, which may be subject to secondary sanctions.

If you are uncertain why an entity is included, we recommend a) looking at the "Relationships" section of the entity profile to see if it is linked to a primary risk source, and b) checking the metadata description of the data sources (linked at the bottom of the entity profile) to understand the rationale for its composition.

More information:

• Our inclusion criteria
• Listing of data sources