As promised, a teaser database of 214,000 offshore entities created in 21 jurisdictions, has been released by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
I say “teaser” because of the information you won’t find in the database:
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The new data that ICIJ is now making public represents a fraction of the Panama Papers, a trove of more than 11.5 million leaked files from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the world’s top creators of hard-to-trace companies, trusts and foundations.ICIJ is not publishing the totality of the leak, and it is not disclosing raw documents or personal information en masse. The database contains a great deal of information about company owners, proxies and intermediaries in secrecy jurisdictions, but it doesn’t disclose bank accounts, email exchanges and financial transactions contained in the documents.
In all, the interactive application reveals more than 360,000 names of people and companies behind secret offshore structures. As the data are from leaked sources and not a standardized registry, there may be some duplication of names.
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Warning: Even visits to the database are being logged, as shown by this initial greeting:
How deep the tracking is post-entry to the site isn’t readily evident.
I would assume all searches are logged along with the IP address of origin.
Use Tor if you plan to visit this resource.
A couple of positive comments about the database:
First, you can download the database as CSV files, a file for each type of node and the other for edges (think relationships). A release of the Neo4j data files is forthcoming.
Second, the ICIJ gets the licensing right:
The ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database is licensed under the Open Database License and its contents under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Always cite the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists when using this data.
Be forewarned that a lot of loose headlines will be appearing about this release, such as: The Panama Papers can now be searched online. Hardly, see the ICIJ’s own statement of exclusions above. It’s always better to read a post before commenting on it.
I don’t now nor have I ever disagreed with the statement “the > 370 reporters and the ICIJ have done a great job of reporting on the Panama Papers.”
I do disagree with the refusal of the ICIJ to release the leak contents to law enforcement under the guise of protecting the leaker and its plans to never release the full leak to the public.
As I have said before, some period of exclusive access is understandable given the investment of ICIJ in the leak but only for a reasonable period of time.