What is Declarator?
Declarator is a constantly expanded database of Russian public servants: members of parliament, government officials, judges, members of regional and municipal governments, employees of state-owned corporations and enterprises, state institutions and other organizations.
Declarator's main source of information is data on income, property and property-related liabilities. We use the term “anti-corruption declarations”. More than one million people in Russia are under obligations to make this information publicly available. We also use additional sources, such as income and property records of election candidates (pre-electoral declarations), data on monthly salary of employees of state institutions, declarations of members of Russian delegation to Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and open sources.
We integrate data from declarations of different types and convert them into a unified machine-readable format. After that, we retrieve data from different records and create a uniform profile for each public servant. The profile contains information on their income, property, and property-related liabilities for all years available.
You may find a more detailed description of the project here (russian).
How is the database filled with data?
A big part of the information the database contains has been filled in manually from the original source. But we also develop software tools for data processing. Our smart parser can read almost any original format of anti-corruption declarations and recognizes the type of each unit of data found. Thanks to the parser the volume of information contained in the database can multiply several times.
What is this for?
The fact that a civil servant owns property and has an income, whatever it amount is, is something totally normal. However, the information on that income and on the kind of property owned by this servant must be available to everyone. Our goal is to create a simple and efficient tool for journalists and activists involved in public oversight. We want to be sure that income and property are fully declared and the amount of new property acquired is commensurate with official income. The creation of such a tool also allows citizens to access socially significant information easily and without hindrance.
How can I find information on a person in Declarator?
One way is to type a query on home page. This may be the last name of the person or the government agency or public institution whose employee is of interest to you. You also may use the list of persons.
If the search does not return any results but you know for certain where and when the person you are interested in has worked (and this is a position accountable to the public) you may search the originals of the declarations. They can be found under the tab “Files” on the page dedicated to the agency this person has worked in. Sometimes, the location of the declarations is not obvious. For example, data on university staff may be found in different sections, depending on the founder of the university. This may be the federal government, the Ministry of Education and Science, other ministries or regional or municipal authorities.
Who creates the Declarator database?
Declarator is created by Transparency International - Russia. TI Russia develops the project with support from its partners. We are also assisted by a big team of volunteers. Please contact us if you need assistance in using our database or want to help with its development. Our e-mail: [email protected].
We believe that the more open the authorities are, the more responsible and accountable to society they become.
Is this legal at all?
Declarator collects data from the websites of state and municipal authorities as well as from those that belong to organizations under state authorities control. This information includes data on income, expenses, property and property-related liabilities in the part that is published on the Internet (art. 8 part 6 of the Russian Federal Law “On Prevention of Corruption”); data from the Uniform State Register of Legal Entities (art. 6 part 1 of the Federal Law “On State Registration of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs”); other data from state-owned information systems and other sources disclosed by virtue of federal legislation.
According to art. 6 part 1 of the Federal Law “On Personal Data”, no agreement of the person concerned is needed for the processing of their personal data if such personal data have become available following their disclosure according to federal legislation. Consequently, Declarator has no obligation to obtain agreement on processing personal data since it uses only open and legitimate sources.
