Armenia and Latvia become first countries to publish data in line with the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard

Armenia and Latvia have become the first countries to publish beneficial ownership data in line with Open Ownership’s Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS).

BODS provides a framework for collecting and publishing beneficial ownership data, resulting in data that is interoperable, more easily reused and of higher quality.

With an initial focus on extractive industry companies, Armenia has begun publishing beneficial ownership data in line with BODS via its company register (see this example and EITI Armenia’s list of mining companies with declarations). From early next year, it will expand these beneficial ownership transparency measures to companies operating in the media and other sectors.

The Armenian register also makes use of our open-source Beneficial Ownership Visualisation System to generate easy-to-understand visual representations of beneficial ownership structures for companies declaring in line with BODS.

Latvia is adopting BODS for its whole economy with data being published by the Register of Enterprises of the Republic of Latvia. An initial release of approximately 113,000 beneficial ownership declarations has been published by the Latvian authorities in BODS JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format with further releases imminent. The data has been published for anyone to use under the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication licence.

By releasing structured, detailed, and comprehensive open data from its central register, in line with the Open Ownership Principles, Latvia has demonstrated its commitment to effective beneficial ownership disclosure as one of the members of the Beneficial Ownership Leadership Group.

Thom Townsend, executive director of Open Ownership, said: “It is fantastic to see Armenia and Latvia taking the lead internationally on beneficial ownership transparency by publishing data in line with our data standard.

“Beneficial ownership data is easier to use and verify when it is well structured and interoperable. We look forward to assisting other countries with publishing high quality beneficial ownership data.”

OO’s team of data analysts have been examining and exploring these data publications. Findings from these data explorations will be shared with the relevant authorities to help improve the data quality and coverage. This work will also inform future blog posts on openownership.org.

BODS has been developed and maintained by Open Ownership in partnership with Open Data Services.

Visit standard.openownership.org to learn more about the specifications of the BODS. If you are looking for support with any elements of beneficial ownership transparency from Open Ownership, please get in touch with our helpdesk or by sending an email to [email protected].