Our compliance statement lists the categories of public material we work from. This page sets out what that means in practice: the kinds of record we consult, and representative examples of each. It is a description of the public landscape we draw on, not a claim of privileged access to any of it.
Government and official record
Statutory publications and official registers are the strongest open material available, because they are authoritative on their own terms and usually dated and versioned.
- National statistics offices and official gazettes.
- Legislative records, court filings, and published judgments.
- Public procurement and tender portals, which reveal capability and spending patterns.
- Central bank releases and budget documentation.
- UN Comtrade for reported bilateral trade flows.
Corporate and financial disclosure
- National company registries: incorporation, directors, shareholding, and filing history.
- SEC EDGAR for filings by companies listed in the United States.
- OpenCorporates for cross-jurisdiction company data.
- Annual reports, prospectuses, and audited accounts.
Sanctions and restricted-party lists
Consulted both as subject matter and as a compliance check on our own reporting.
- OFAC sanctions search (United States).
- The EU consolidated financial sanctions list.
- The UN Security Council consolidated list.
Geospatial and imagery
Used for geolocation, change detection over time, and corroborating claims about physical activity at a known location.
- Copernicus Sentinel optical and radar imagery.
- NASA Worldview for daily global coverage and thermal anomaly layers.
- OpenStreetMap for base mapping and feature reference.
- Commercial high-resolution imagery, where licensing permits publication.
Transport and infrastructure telemetry
- Publicly broadcast AIS vessel positions and port-call records.
- Publicly broadcast ADS-B aircraft positions and registration records.
- Rail, pipeline, and grid operator disclosures where published.
Academic and technical literature
- Peer-reviewed journals and preprint servers.
- Patent filings and standards-body documentation.
- Conference proceedings and institutional research output.
News, broadcast, and social material
Treated as reporting to be corroborated rather than as record. Origin matters more than volume: many outlets repeating one source is still one source.
- Wire services and established outlets, including state media read as a statement of official position.
- Publicly posted social-media material, assessed for provenance before use and never obtained by deceptive access.
- The Internet Archive for retrieving and preserving material that has been altered or removed.
How we handle what we find
- Source material is archived at the point of access, so a later deletion does not strand a published claim.
- Everything is graded for reliability and credibility under our methodology before it supports a published statement.
- Copyrighted material is used only with permission or under recognised limitations such as quotation and fair dealing.
- Personal information incidental to a finding is excluded unless there is a clear public interest in publishing it.