Understanding beneficial ownership data use

Glossary

Assets: “[Items] of property owned by a person or company, regarded as having value and available to meet debts, commitments, or legacies”. [1] While assets include company shares, this report will typically use the term to refer to all other assets, including tangible assets such as land and real estate, and intangible assets such as financial assets or government-issued licences.

Attributes: Characteristics associated with a particular subject (e.g. individuals, legal vehicles, or assets) that help to uniquely identify it. This information can be collected in data fields, and it can include both information that is specific but not necessarily unique to an individual (e.g. name, date of birth, or nationalities) and information that is unique (e.g. a national ID number).

Beneficial ownership (BO) data user or user: Any actor (for example, an individual or an organisation) that uses or could use BO information to answer questions that help achieve specific purposes, which broadly contribute to the policy objectives associated with BOT reforms. This research primarily focuses on end users of BO information, but also includes interviews with intermediary users such as commercial providers of services (e.g. data cleaning and aggregation) that form part of the BO data-use ecosystem.

BO data-use journey: The complete set of activities a user undertakes to answer one or more questions using BO information. Initial questions may lead to additional lines of inquiry.

Entity resolution: The process of establishing whether multiple records about a subject (e.g. individuals, legal vehicles, or assets) are referring to the same subject or different subjects.

Identity verification: The process of determining to which real-world individuals or legal vehicles records correspond. Although this process is different from entity resolution, entity resolution can be achieved through identity verification.

Line of inquiry: The steps taken by a user to answer their question.

Relationship: A connection between two subjects. For example: legal ownership is a relationship between a legal vehicle or individual and another legal vehicle or other asset, whereas beneficial ownership is a relationship between an individual and a legal vehicle. Relationships between individuals, such as through marriage or family relations, can also be relevant to BO information.

Use type: The way in which BO information is used. Use types vary based on the characteristics of the questions data users are seeking to answer.

User needs: What users need to effectively use BO information. In a user-centred approach, user needs will inform what specific requirements can be developed to meet these needs.

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