Introducing the new OpenSanctions API

As we’ve been speaking to businesses and organizations interested in OpenSanctions, we’ve seen a clear need amongst them for an easy-to-integrate, software-as-a-service API.

The OpenSanctions API, which we’re re-launching today, provides a high-quality matching interface for the full OpenSanctions dataset.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve completely reworked that API to make it even easier to integrate and adopt. With a new usage-based pricing model, customers can build on top of the OpenSanctions database without the need to subscribe to our bulk data license. Instead, they can use the API and pay for exactly what they use - even if it’s just a single request per month.

We’ve also rewritten and updated our API documentation to make sure your technical integration goes smoothly: Using our API endpoints documentation, data dictionary and available tutorials, integrating our API is now easier than ever. In fact, sign-up can be completed in just a minute, thanks to our integration with Stripe.

See regulatory risk from miles away (credit)

The OpenSanctions API is great at providing fast, precise, up-to-date searches of sanctioned individuals, politically exposed persons and other entities. What’s even better is that we have a number of ways to ensure that the matches we provide are transparent; you can always see the source of the information we publish. The software components driving our API for matching has been under development for several years and is fast, accurate and highly innovative.

Once integrated into a customer’s system, the OpenSanctions API provides a rapid and reliable matching mechanism that can be used to check which people and companies are on international sanctions lists, as well as criminal interest and PEPs lists.

Of course we’ll continue to offer the OpenSanctions dataset as a bulk data service, which is now set at EUR 595 per month. Access to the entire dataset enables customers to run their own continuously-updated on-premises matching service using our open source API software, or to integrate with platforms, workflows and services.

As we phase out free access to our API service over the next weeks, we’d like to invite any journalists and activists that have been using the system to contact us to receive free API keys to the new service. Those who have used the API for commercial purposes are invited to get in touch to discuss volume pricing and free trials.

OpenSanctions’ mission is to provide information that helps customers make informed decisions based on relevant, high-quality data. This is why we spend so much time and effort checking our data, in large part by hand, to provide greater confidence in its accuracy.

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This article is part of OpenSanctions, the open database of sanctions targets and persons of interest.