Transforming standardised beneficial ownership data into usable formats
Beneficial ownership data should be easy to use once you have been given access to it.
Using the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS) — the world’s leading open standard — not only helps improve data quality, usability and interoperability but also increases the ease with which data can be transformed into the formats that users need.
To help demonstrate this, I have recently been using Claude Code to create open-source code for converting BODS JSON data into a number of formats used by analysts and investigators:
Bidirectional converter between BODS <> Neo4J graph database format for querying with Cypher
BODS for use with GQL (Graph Query Language), a standardised query language for property graphs supported in Big Query
(Try experimenting with large BODS datasets from the UK or the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation which are both available in BigQuery)
Bidirectional converter between BODS <> FollowTheMoney data model
As used by OpenSanctions, the Data and Research Center (for datasets on OpenAleph) and others:
Converter for BODS to XML
Converter for BODS to Lance columnar storage format
For converting BODS JSON to CSV, SQLite, Postgresql and Parquet, check out the BODS data analysis tools code from Open Ownership which makes use of Flatterer from David Raznick:
You can see this in action at the link below:
There is also a BODS RDF Vocabulary created by Amy Guy — formerly of Open Data Services — for using and understanding beneficial ownership information as part of an RDF knowledge graph:
And I’ve also worked to show how to transform information from leading AML data providers into BODS where they have public documentation of their data models available:
Kyckr
OpenCorporates
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)
BrightQuery
I hope these resources are of use to anyone looking to use beneficial ownership data or to adopt BODS.
For four years, I was the product owner of the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard, the world’s leading open standard for beneficial ownership information and continue to advocate to improve beneficial ownership data quality and standardisation. To learn more or if you need technical guidance or consultancy support, contact me via beneficialownership.co.uk.
