Disclaimer

The Observatory for Political and Economic Networks is an online data project initially launched with the effort of a small team. The team—in part automatically through artificial intelligence techniques and in part manually—has gathered fragments of dispersed data from various government, press, media, research, and social media websites (in the form of databases, official documents, research, studies, news, photos, videos, or other available forms) and collected them into a "network knowledge base." Since the nature of the project means the knowledge base is only as reliable as the data provided to it, the Observatory team adopted a set of methods to optimize data quality:
 

  • The Fact-Checking Process: This is done by verifying the author, the bias of the source, the date of the information, any supporting sources, and corroborating with other references.
  • Citations and References: Each entity page has a reference section that supports the data presented on that page.
  • Reliability Measure: We designed an additional reliability index that takes into account the reliability of each reference or source and, through a set formula, gives an overall score for each entity page. For example, corporate proprietary data from the Department of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection website are highly credible, while data collected from social media are considered low-credibility. Currently, we have developed our own reliability measure based on our subjective assessment of the reliability of the source itself, not the particular piece of data. This measure is shown with the overall reliability score section of each entity page. We are continuously enhancing this measure to make it more useful to our partners.
  • Credibility of Data Collection and Data Entry Personnel: Although public participation in the data collection and entry process is welcome, entry and amendment authority has been given to a small group of reliable team members who carry out pre-publication verification.

Even with all of the methodologies listed above, we must point out that the materials published in the Observatory website have not necessarily been reviewed by expert and impartial parties for a fully comprehensive and accurate assessment of the validity of the information; it is possible that some information has been integrated automatically without direct human review. This includes all entity pages, data views, and dashboards. Although the Observatory team has made every effort to make this website useful for everyone, we cannot guarantee the reliability and validity of every piece of data contained in the website. The credibility index of any given site page is only an indicator based on certain biases. We advise site users to consult the published references, and to search and validate the information in every possible way.

The published data and information we weave together on the Observatory website come from publicly available sources as well as published administrative data; any source may later modify, delete, or encode that information. Therefore, we advise site users to refer to the published references, and to search and verify the correctness of the information in every possible way. It is possible to resort to well-known archive sites to obtain the claims as published by the source. Because the Observatory accumulates data over time, the network knowledge database may still retain data that the source has modified, deleted, or encoded. Therefore, we gladly invite anyone who finds claims or data that is inaccurate and/or no longer supported by a source to let us know so we can take the necessary action.

It is necessary to note that the appearance of the name of a person or organization in the Observatory database does not necessarily imply a value judgment. Simply put, the named entity was part of the scene. Therefore, we highly recommend study and examination of Observatory data, and an understanding of the types of entity networks and the relationships and information contained in each of them, in order to avoid a misunderstanding of the connections between some individuals and organizations. Neither the Observatory nor its parent organization Obsalytics can be held responsible in any way for a misunderstanding of the data contained in the Observatory database.

It is important to note that no contributor, shareholder, sponsor, supporter, or administrator of the project, nor anyone related to Obsalytics in any way, bears any responsibility for the appearance of inaccurate or defamatory information that came from the original sources and references data; this extends to any party using data published or linked to the Observatory’s or Obsalytics’s websites. Neither the Observatory nor the Obsalytics company can be held responsible in any way for the use of the Observatory’s content and pages by any third party, whether they rely on it for analysis, studies, decision-making, or any other use.


The service provided by the Observatory for Political and Economic Networks is copyrighted, and the contract between Obsalytics and the user is defined by the chosen service agreement. The user has no right to copy, transfer, or print the content commercially or for the benefit of a third party, except with written authorization from Obsalytics.

All trademarks, service marks, collective marks, design rights, personal rights, or any other similar rights mentioned or cited in the Observatory are the property of their respective owners. Observatory website users are prohibited from using them commercially without obtaining written authorization from their owners, and any use of them by Observatory users is at their own risk.

It is the policy of the Observatory to respond promptly to notifications of copyright infringement that comply with the notification system of the Canadian Copyright Modernization Act. If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that infringes upon your intellectual property rights, you may submit a request to remove the content under the Canadian Copyright Modernization Act Notification System by contacting the Observatory directly.

Information posted on the Observatory website may violate the laws of the country or jurisdiction from which you are browsing the site. The Observatory databases are hosted in Canada and are protected under Canadian local and federal laws. The laws in your country or jurisdiction may not protect or allow a similar type of freedom of expression or publication. The Observatory for Political and Economic Networks and Obsalytics encourage you to avoid violating laws and cannot be held responsible for the violation of such laws by browsing, using, reproducing, or publishing the content of the Observatory.