Preparing for a licensing conversation

Every screening process has different data, regulatory, and technical requirements. Answering the questions below will help you choose between the Screening API, an in-house screening license, and a reseller or OEM license.

You do not need a finished technical design before talking to us. A rough understanding of your requirements is enough to make the conversation useful.

Which sources do you need? #

Start with the sanctions, PEP, and other watchlists required by your regulators or internal policies. Use the data source browser to check whether OpenSanctions covers them.

It also helps to identify any geographic or industry-specific requirements. If an essential source is missing, knowing that early is more useful than trying to work around the gap during integration.

How much screening will you perform? #

Estimate how many people, organizations, payments, or other entities you need to screen and how often you will screen them. Include both onboarding checks and recurring screening of existing records.

Volume determines the size of the credit bundle you need. Only volumes in the millions, or a requirement to keep data on your own systems, point toward a locally operated integration.

What information can you provide for matching? #

Names alone often produce ambiguous results. Dates of birth, countries, addresses, registration numbers, passport numbers, and other attributes can make screening more precise.

Review the data model and compare it with the fields available in your records. For vessels, companies, and securities, stable identifiers such as IMO numbers, company registration numbers, or ISINs can be especially useful.

Where does your screening data live? #

Identify the system that holds the records you want to screen: for example, a CRM, ERP, payment platform, data warehouse, spreadsheet, or existing compliance application.

OpenSanctions does not provide ready-made integrations for those systems. Knowing where the data lives helps your engineering team decide where API calls, bulk-data processing, matching, and result handling should take place.

Are you screening for your own organization or for customers? #

If you use the Screening API, the standard terms cover both: screening inside your own organization and screening inside a product or service you sell (details).

If you use bulk data, the license depends on who the screening serves. An in-house screening license covers use inside your own organization, such as screening customers, payments, suppliers, and other counterparties. If you will embed OpenSanctions bulk data into a product or service used by your customers, you need a reseller or OEM license. Make this distinction early because it determines the commercial arrangement, even when the technical integration looks similar.

Where should the screening service run? #

Most teams use the Screening API: a managed service and the quickest integration. Consider your requirements for privacy, security, latency, scaling, and infrastructure ownership. The on-premise API and bulk data keep screening within infrastructure you control and support high-volume or customized workflows.

Your preferred architecture does not need to be final. Sharing the constraints behind it will help us recommend an appropriate integration path.