Documentation · Data model
Data dictionary JSON
Every entity type and property in our downloads and API, the property types they use and the topics we assign. The model follows FollowTheMoney, the open data model used for investigations and screening data, but we publish only the part of it that our sources fill today.
Entities
Each listing we collect becomes an entity: a person, company, organization, vessel or aircraft, with properties such as its name, aliases and birth date. Every property holds a list of values, because publishers often give more than one. The listing itself is a second entity, of type Sanction, that points to the listed party and says who published it and under which programme.
How the JSON object is laid out, and what its ID, dates and references mean, is on Entity structure. How the two entities are combined in the nested files is on Flat and nested entities.
entities.ftm.json files can be read with the open-source FollowTheMoney libraries (Python package, source), which validate schemas and property types. A machine-readable summary of the model (schemas, entity fields, topics and files) is published as model.json; property-level detail is on this page.Schema types
Every entity has a schema that says what kind of thing it is and which properties it may carry. Schemas inherit from one another: a Person is a kind of LegalEntity, which is a kind of Thing. Our sources give us six schemas for the parties you screen against, and one for the listing.
Parties you can screen against
Counts are records in the Crown Default collection, read from its index file when this page loads.
| Schema | Records in Crown Default | Browse |
|---|---|---|
Person | — | Search people |
Company | — | Search companies |
Organization | — | Search organizations |
LegalEntity | — | Search unclassified records |
Vessel | — | Search vessels |
Airplane | — | Search aircraft |
Listing details
| Schema | Records in Crown Default | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
Sanction | — | One per record: the register, the programme and the listing date. |
FollowTheMoney defines many more schemas: addresses, identity documents, positions held, ownership, directorships, family and associate links, crypto wallets and securities. We do not publish any of them yet. Where a publisher gives that information, it is kept in the notes property as written. Turning it into proper entities is planned work (data backlog items 9, 22, 23 and 32).
Schemas and their properties
Only the properties we actually fill for each schema are listed. Each table gives the property name as it appears in the JSON, its type (see Property types), the length in characters of the longest single value in the Crown Default build of 3 October 2026, what the property holds, and a real value of that schema from the same build. Lengths change from build to build. Allow for long values: a few publishers put whole paragraphs in a name field.
Person
A person named by a publisher: a sanctioned individual, a politically exposed person, a debarred professional.
- Extends
- LegalEntity → Thing
- Reference
- FollowTheMoney: Person
| Property | Type | Longest value | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
name | name | 2,041 | Primary name, exactly as the publisher wrote it. | SULTAN AZIZ AZAM |
alias | name | 2,000 | Other names, spellings and scripts given by the publisher. | AZIZ AZAM |
birthDate | date | 10 | Date of birth, only as precise as the publisher states it. | 1985 |
nationality | country | 2 | Nationality as a lower-case ISO 3166-1 code. | af |
topics | topic | 10 | Why the entity is in our data. See Risk topics. | sanction |
notes | text | 485 | Other details from the publisher that we have not yet split into fields (addresses, ID numbers, flags). | Nat: AFGHANISTAN · DOB: 1985 |
sourceUrl | url | 79 | Page at the publisher for this listing, where the publisher gives one. Filled today only for French insolvency notices (BODACC). | a notice on bodacc.fr |
Company
A company or other commercial business.
- Extends
- Organization → LegalEntity → Thing; also Asset
- Reference
- FollowTheMoney: Company
| Property | Type | Longest value | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
name | name | 875 | Primary name, exactly as the publisher wrote it. | FIRST CRIMEAN INSURANCE COMPANY |
alias | name | 887 | Other names, spellings and scripts given by the publisher. | ATLANTIC LOTTERY |
country | country | 2 | Country linked to the entity by the publisher, as a lower-case ISO 3166-1 code. | kp |
imoNumber | identifier | 10 | IMO company number (the IMO’s registered owner or manager number), read from the publisher’s details. | IMO6166689 |
topics | topic | 10 | Why the entity is in our data. See Risk topics. | sanction |
notes | text | 214 | Other details from the publisher that we have not yet split into fields (addresses, ID numbers, flags). | Nat: RUSSIAN FEDERATION |
Organization
A non-commercial body: a government agency, association, armed group or political party.
- Extends
- LegalEntity → Thing
- Reference
- FollowTheMoney: Organization
| Property | Type | Longest value | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
name | name | 196 | Primary name, exactly as the publisher wrote it. | 53RD ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE BRIGADE |
alias | name | 48 | Other names, spellings and scripts given by the publisher. | AMALGAMATED POL & ED CMTE OF PHILADELPHIA |
topics | topic | 9 | Why the entity is in our data. See Risk topics. | sanction |
notes | text | 33 | Other details from the publisher that we have not yet split into fields (addresses, ID numbers, flags). | Belgium |
LegalEntity
A listed party whose type the publisher does not state and we could not tell from the record.
- Extends
- Thing
- Reference
- FollowTheMoney: LegalEntity
| Property | Type | Longest value | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
name | name | 513 | Primary name, exactly as the publisher wrote it. | Volga-Dnepr Airlines |
alias | name | 55 | Other names, spellings and scripts given by the publisher. | TW Pro / TW Plus |
topics | topic | 9 | Why the entity is in our data. See Risk topics. | sanction |
notes | text | 180 | Other details from the publisher that we have not yet split into fields (addresses, ID numbers, flags). | Switzerland |
Vessel
A ship, identified by its IMO number where the publisher gives one.
- Extends
- Vehicle → Asset → Thing
- Reference
- FollowTheMoney: Vessel
| Property | Type | Longest value | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
name | name | 42 | Primary name, exactly as the publisher wrote it. | ARK III |
alias | name | 30 | Other names, spellings and scripts given by the publisher. | UNIMARIN DENIZCILIK |
imoNumber | identifier | 10 | IMO ship number, read from the publisher’s details. | IMO9187655 |
topics | topic | 9 | Why the entity is in our data. See Risk topics. | sanction |
notes | text | 180 | Other details from the publisher that we have not yet split into fields (addresses, ID numbers, flags). | Vessel Registration Identification IMO 7206512. |
Airplane
An aircraft, usually named by its registration mark.
- Extends
- Vehicle → Asset → Thing
- Reference
- FollowTheMoney: Airplane
| Property | Type | Longest value | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
name | name | 6 | Primary name, exactly as the publisher wrote it. | F-OJHH |
topics | topic | 8 | Why the entity is in our data. See Risk topics. | sanction |
notes | text | 180 | Other details from the publisher that we have not yet split into fields (addresses, ID numbers, flags). | Aircraft Model Falcon 900B; Aircraft Manufacturer’s Serial Number (MSN) 133; Aircraft Tail Number YV2040. |
Sanction
The listing itself: which register published it, under which programme and when. Each record has exactly one Sanction entity, whose ID is the record ID followed by -sanction. The name is FollowTheMoney’s: we use it for every list type, including PEP, debarment and regulatory records.
- Extends
- Interval
- Reference
- FollowTheMoney: Sanction
| Property | Type | Longest value | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
entity | entity | 15 | ID of the listed entity this listing is about. | crown-379597165 |
authority | string | 136 | The register that published the listing. | OFAC SDN |
program | string | 2,754 | Programme, regime or legal basis as published. See The programme field. | RUSSIA-EO14024 |
sourceUrl | url | 79 | Page at the publisher for this listing, where the publisher gives one. Filled today only for French insolvency notices (BODACC). | a notice on bodacc.fr |
listingDate | date | — | Date the publisher listed the entity. Defined, but not filled in the current build. | — |
Property types
Every property has a type that fixes how its values are written.
| Type | Format | Example |
|---|---|---|
| name | Free text, as published. Not translated or transliterated. | AZAM, SULTAN AZIZ |
| date | ISO 8601 with only the precision the publisher gives: YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD. | 1985 |
| country | ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code in lower case. | af |
| identifier | A registry or ship number. Today only IMO numbers, written IMO plus seven digits. | IMO6922169 |
| topic | A code from the topic list below. | role.pep |
| url | A full web address at the publisher. | https://… |
| text | Long free text, not used for matching. | Nat: AFGHANISTAN · DOB: 1985 |
| string | Short free text. | OFAC SDN |
| entity | The ID of another entity in the same file. | crown-379597165 |
Company and security identifiers such as LEI and ISIN are held in our registry tables but are not part of the entity files yet (data backlog item 13). Other identifiers that publishers print, such as passport and tax numbers, stay in notes until they are parsed (item 9).
Topics
Each record gets one topic from the type of list it comes from. The full explanation, and the topics we do not assign yet, are on Risk topics.
| Topic | Meaning |
|---|---|
sanction | Named on a sanctions list |
role.pep | Politically exposed person |
debarment | Barred from public contracts or excluded by a regulator |
reg.action | Named in a regulatory or enforcement action, including tax warrants and insolvency notices |
The programme field
The program property holds the programme, regime or legal basis named by the publisher, exactly as published, for example RUSSIA-EO14024. Some publishers use the field for other things, such as a party type or a decision reference, and we keep their wording. FollowTheMoney also defines programId and programUrl; we reserve both until we have a catalogue of programmes with their issuing authorities. See Sanctions programmes and the programme directory.
How often each field is filled
Share of Crown Default records with at least one value, from the current build. A low figure usually means the publishers do not give that detail, or that we have not yet parsed it out of notes.
| Property | Records with a value | Share |
|---|---|---|
name | — | — |
alias | — | — |
birthDate | — | — |
nationality | — | — |
imoNumber | — | — |
program | — | — |
sourceUrl | — | — |
Glossary
The terms used here (source register, collection, record, entity, distinct entity, target) are defined on the Glossary page.
| Term | Short meaning |
|---|---|
| Source register | One list from one publisher. |
| Collection | A bundle of registers for one purpose. |
| Record | One listing of one party in one register. |
| Distinct entity | Records sharing a name and birth date, counted once. |
| Target | The listed party, as opposed to the listing. |
Download columns
The simplified file targets.simple.csv has one row per record with these columns: id, schema, name, aliases, birth_date, countries, addresses, identifiers, sanctions, phones, emails, program_ids, dataset, first_seen, last_seen, last_change. The addresses, phones, emails and program_ids columns are present for compatibility and empty today. Column-by-column definitions are in Using the bulk data.
Per-register downloads from a source page use a different, older layout: id, name, alt_names, list_type, entity_type, program, dob, nationality, entity_id, first_seen, loaded_at, source.
Last updated 2026-10-04