An RDF vocabulary for beneficial ownership data, created with Blue Anvil

One of Open Ownership’s Principles for Effective Beneficial Ownership Disclosure is that beneficial ownership data becomes more useful when it is available in a structured format.

Structuring beneficial ownership data allows it to be easily analysed and linked with other datasets, enhancing the data’s ability to expose transnational networks of illicit financial flows and support effective and timely due diligence.

To guide anyone looking to structure such data, Open Ownership (OO) maintains and updates the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS), an open standard for collecting and publishing high-quality beneficial ownership data.

OO was excited to collaborate with Blue Anvil, who have modelled a Resource Description Framework (RDF) vocabulary for BODS, building on our data standard and making it easier to query and use complex beneficial ownership data.

RDF is designed to help people exchange and combine data on the Web and is being used here to translate the shape of BODS data into a graph structure.

Blue Anvil builds custom technology solutions for the financial sector. More information on this work can be found in Blue Anvil’s detailed proposal, developed in collaboration with OO. Alternatively, the GitHub repository is available for anyone to use, build on, or adapt their code.

Open standards for data are “reusable agreements that make it easier for people and organisations to publish, access, share, and use better quality data,” according to the Open Data Institute.

OO’s work on BODS is delivered in partnership with Open Data Services, and anyone can comment or contribute to its development via the feature tracker.

Blue Anvil’s work on this RDF vocabulary will be at the heart of the new Truintel service, which they are developing to provide comprehensive intelligence for UK companies. It will launch in beta in a few months.

Email [email protected] with any questions related to BODS, or [email protected] to learn more about Blue Anvil’s work in this area.