Watch UK beneficial ownership information change in real time as open, standardised data
Today I’m launching BODS stream, a live view of UK beneficial ownership changing in real time, as open, standardised data.
Try it at bods.stream.
BODS stream connects to the Companies House Persons with Significant Control (PSC) Streaming API and turns every change - the moment it’s filed - into Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS) v0.4 statements on your screen.
Each event appears as an easy-to-understand diagram, drawing inspiration from the Beneficial Ownership Visualisation System, with the raw Companies House event and the mapped BODS shown side by side.
Why this is unique
Most corporate registers don’t offer a streaming API, and almost none stream beneficial ownership data publicly.
The UK is the standout exception — its PSC stream is the only public, real-time feed of beneficial ownership change anywhere.
Companies House offers one of the world’s largest and most transparent registers and offers open and free company and beneficial ownership data on UK companies via public search, in a range of data formats as well as via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
In my recent piece on making beneficial ownership data public and realising its value, I described how a decade of UK openness now generates billions of pounds in value and 16.5 billion data requests a year.
BODS stream is that openness in action: ownership appearing, changing and ceasing, live.
As jurisdictions worldwide move towards having adequate, accurate and up-to-date beneficial ownership information, BODS stream shows you just how fast this information changes as well as showing how using an open standard makes it quicker and easier to understand and use the data.
How it showcases BODS
A static bulk download shows you a snapshot. BODS is purpose-built to represent change -recordStatus new/updated/closed, one statement per point in time.
So you don't just see that something changed; you watch a beneficial owner appear (new), get re-filed (updated) or be removed (closed) - the full lifecycle, captured as an append-only open standard. No snapshot can show that.
Checks and risk signals
BODS stream computes structural risk signals with no external calls: spotting links to jurisdiction on FATF’s black/grey lists; flagging the involvement of trusts and other legal arrangements; surfacing nominee and “super-secure” (opaque) arrangements; as well as sanctions flags where this is disclosed to Companies House.
A stream-native “prolific PSC” signal shows when one person turns up controlling several companies in a single session, while a live insight bar tracks the individual-versus-corporate split, the cessation rate and the identity verification rate.
Crucially, these signals describe the company or arrangement, not named individuals — and address and date of birth are stripped at ingress.
Building on OpenCheck
BODS stream shares its Companies House → BODS mapping core with OpenCheck, my LEI-powered customer due diligence tool, so the two can’t drift.
Where OpenCheck answers “tell me about this entity”, BODS stream answers “show me ownership changing, now” - two complementary views with one open standard at the centre.
The open source code for BODS stream is available at https://github.com/StephenAbbott/bods-stream.
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.
