Skip to content

Availability: Interest & asset declarations

To what extent is detailed interest and asset declaration information available for public use?

Definitions and Identification

Interest and asset declarations’ data should provide a comprehensive overview of the financial state of all relevant public officials, clearly identifying their interests, assets, and liabilities, as well as gifts they receive. In addition to regular updates, such data should include information on any significant changes in an official's interests, assets, and liabilities—for example, it should be responsive to changes in employment. Declarations data should also use unique identifiers to clearly identify not only the public official but also any partners, family members, or other close associates that the country requires to disclose interests and assets as well.

Among other functions, it should be possible to use declarations data to verify that relevant public officials do not have interests that trigger conflict between their public responsibilities and private identity. Datasets may include information about interests that have been divested or placed in a blind trust or other mechanism designated by the country.

Examples

  • The Haute Autorité pour la Transparence de la Vie Publique (HATVP) is an independent French authority composed of members appointed by the President, the Conseil d'État, the Court of Audit, the National Assembly, and the Senate. HATVP's website provides a user-friendly interface for accessing, downloading, and analyzing data on asset and interest declarations.

  • In Chile, The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic and the Council for Transparency provide citizens with access to declarations of interests and assets, including personal property, securities (both domestic and international), and debts exceeding one hundred monthly tax units. This information is available on a website that is updated weekly and offers data in various open formats (CSV, XML, JSON, SPARQL).

Note: This indicator pairs with a related indicator that assesses governance of interest and asset data in order to compare frameworks and actual practice. While completing each one, you will likely discover further information that will help answer the sub-questions of the other, so it is suggested that you work on the pair together.

Starting points

  • Sources:

    • Transparency International's Integrity Watch includes political integrity information for at least seventeen countries in Europe; depending on the country, this may include political finance data, interest and asset information, and lobbying data. Time ranges covered vary by country; for some countries data may no longer be up-to-date, but can still provide a useful starting point.

  • Search:

    • The site of the country's relevant oversight agency or agencies; these may include, for example, an office of governmental ethics, public integrity agency, etc.

  • Consult:

    • Investigative journalists who report on conflicts of interest, public officials' assets, or money in politics more broadly, particularly any who appear to be using aggregate interest and asset data.

    • Officials of civil society organizations that advocate for transparency and accountability regarding money in politics.

What to look for?

To complete the assessment for this question you will need to access and explore the available data. This may involve running queries on datasets to check the variety of fields included.

Look for evidence that can answer the following questions:

  • What financial and non-financial information does the data include? For example, does it include information about interests, assets, and liabilities, as well as gifts?

  • Does the data include information about significant changes in interests or assets? For example, in response to a change in employment or substantial change in investments?

  • Whose interests and assets are disclosed? Does the data only include information about some public officials or does it cover all public officials? Does it include information about the interests and assets of an official's family or other close associates?

  • Is there evidence of missing data, assessed first against the related governance framework, if that exists, or in the context of the datasets in front of you?

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

  • Is this data available online in any form?

    • Data is not available online.
      Supporting questions: Are there other offline ways to access this data in the country? (e.g., attending an office to inspect it).
    • Data is available, but not as a result of government action.
      Supporting questions: If government is not providing access to data, how is this data available? Please provide a URL(s) for where this data can be found.
    • Data is available from government, or because of government actions.
      Supporting questions: Please provide a URL(s) for where this data can be found.

  • Extent of existence:

  • How nationally comprehensive is the data assessed for this indicator? (The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality., The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities., The data assessed provides national coverage.)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality. or The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.: Which locality or localities does this data cover?

    If The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality. or The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.: Please explain your response.

    If The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality. or The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.: Please provide supporting URL(s) as necessary.

  • Existence summary:

  • Please summarize your answers to the preceding existence sub-questions, including the extent of existence. [Open Text] Drawing on the research you have conducted and the evidence you have gathered for this section, describe what you have found (or not found) when answering the existence sub-questions for this indicator.

    Supporting questions

    Please provide the URL(s) for the evidence that supports the summary provided.

Elements

  • Data fields and specifics:

  • The data contains unique identifiers for each public official and any family members or close associates for whom disclosure is required. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where public official identifiers are located.

  • The data contains information on interests, assets, and liabilities. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where interests, assets, and liabilities details are located.

  • The data contains information on non-financial interests. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “Partially” if the data covers some non-financial interests but doesn’t cover gifts. Answer “Yes” if the data covers gifts as well as other non-financial interests.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially: Which non-financial interests are covered?

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where details of non-financial interests are located.

  • The data contains information on significant changes in interests, assets, and liabilities. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where details about changes in interests, assets, and liabilities are located.

  • The data contains details of the interests, assets, and liabilities held by each family member or close associate for whom disclosure is required. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where details about family members’ or close associates’ interests, assets, and liabilities are located.

  • Data publication:

  • The data is available free of charge. (No, Partially, Yes) This means that the data is accessible without any cost, unlike cases where accessing datasets requires a one-off payment or a subscription fee.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  • The data is openly licensed. (No, Partially, Yes) This means that the data is provided under a license that clearly states that anyone may reuse it, with minimal restrictions on its reuse (e.g., attribution, share-alike).

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If No: If there are explicit restrictions placed on reuse of the data, briefly describe those.

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially or Yes: If the data is provided with an explicit open license, please provide the name of that license and/or a link to it.

  • The data is published with sufficient language coverage to make it accessible to all or almost all members of the public. (No, Partially, Yes) Assess this sub-question using the list of languages provided by your regional coordinator. If the country has only one official language (or de facto official language) and no national languages but there are other languages in use in the country, answer “Partially” if the data is available only in a single language. If the country has multiple official, national, or co-official regional languages, answer “Yes” if the data is available in the majority of these languages.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially or Yes: Please briefly describe the language coverage available.

  • There are accessible and open official tools available to help users explore data. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “Partially” if tools make it possible to get at extracts of data without having to download a full dataset. Answer “Yes” if there is an interactive tool that displays user-filtered extracts of the data to answer simple questions without downloading data at all.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially: What are the main barriers to accessibility and usability?

    If Partially or Yes: Do these tools rely on AI or machine-learning tools? For example, as interfaces. Please briefly explain.

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide URL(s).

  • The data is timely and updated. (No, Partially, Yes) If you have also assessed an associated governance framework, evaluate timeliness by comparing against the relevant schedule laid out in that framework. If there is no such schedule, look first for other indications of an expected schedule (e.g., does the site say the data is updated once a year?), and then examine the frequency, regularity, and recency of updates.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially: If only some of the relevant data is updated, please explain which.

    If Partially or Yes: When was the most recent update to this data?

  • Historical data is available that allows users to track change over time. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially or Yes: For what time period(s) (i.e., start and end dates) is data available?

  • The data is provided in machine-readable format(s). (No, Partially, Yes) Assess the datasets you have provided in response to this indicator’s sub-questions; if there are multiple datasets, use the best example you can locate in terms of availability of open data. Note this selection in the elements summary box and then also answer the following sub-question (on bulk downloading) with respect to that specific dataset.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially: What prevents you from assessing this data as fully machine-readable?

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide a comma separated list of the formats available

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where machine-readable data is located.

  • The machine-readable dataset is available as a whole. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “No” if it's only possible to access individual records. Answer “Partially” if it's possible to export extracts of the data. Answer “Yes” if there are bulk downloads or APIs providing access to the whole dataset without financial, technical, or legal barriers.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where bulk download access is available or described.

    If Partially or Yes: If bulk access is provided through an API, please provide a link to where the API is described.

  • Negative scoring:

  • This information is missing required data. (There is no evidence of data gaps., There is evidence that a portion of mandated data is missing., There is evidence of widespread omissions in mandated data.) In cases where the indicator itself identifies a dataset(s) to assess against—or a separate governance indicator has asked you to determine data requirements of a relevant governing framework—assess against that. In cases where there is no such identified dataset(s) or related governance indicator, please assess based on: the parameters laid out in the publication of the information (e.g., are some fields entirely empty when they shouldn't be?); your local knowledge (e.g., if the data is supposed to include information for all public officials, does the number of total entries seem reasonable?); and any broader research you may have done for this topic (e.g., have media articles decried the incompleteness of this data?). Note: this sub-question examines omissions only of mandated data; so if, for example, laws do not require the reporting of data below certain thresholds, that data is not considered “missing.”

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If There is evidence that a portion of mandated data is missing. or There is evidence of widespread omissions in mandated data.: Please briefly explain.

  • Nonscoring:

  • There is evidence of use of this data. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “Yes” for more than one example; answer “Partially” for a single example.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

    If Partially or Yes: In the example(s) provided, who is using this data? E.g., government, civil society, private sector, media, academia, others.

    If Partially or Yes: In the example(s) provided, for what purpose(s) is the data being used? E.g., for accountability, to improve access for marginalized populations, to influence policy for equity or inclusion, for red flag analysis, etc.

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide URL(s) for example(s).

  • Elements summary:

  • Please summarize your answers to the preceding element sub-questions. [Open Text] Drawing on the research you have conducted and the evidence you have gathered for this section, describe what you have found (or not found) when answering the element sub-questions for this indicator.

    Supporting questions

    Please provide the URL(s) for the evidence that supports the summary provided.

Interest and asset declarations, sometimes referred to as wealth declarations or financial disclosures, have been used since at least 1960, when the Philippines passed its Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act requiring public officials to declare under oath their assets and liabilities at the beginning and end of their terms in office (Apostol n.d.). In 2003, the adoption of the UN Convention Against Corruption, which includes strong declaration practices, sparked a renewed focus on the declaration as an accountability mechanism. A World Bank study published in 2016 found that 161 of 176 countries had some form of interest and asset declaration, though these showed significant variation (Rossi, Pop, and Berger 2016).

To support government transparency and accountability efforts, this indicator investigates the data that countries make available regarding the interests and assets of public officials.