# Technical Updates for March 2026

**URL:** <https://discuss.opensanctions.org/t/technical-updates-for-march-2026/258>\
**Category:** Announcements\
**Tags:** changelog\
**Created:** [March 4, 2026, 3:09pm UTC](https://discuss.opensanctions.org/t/technical-updates-for-march-2026/258 "2026-03-04T15:09:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Brenna](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex014/user_avatar/discuss.opensanctions.org/brenna/32/84_2.png) [@Brenna](https://discuss.opensanctions.org/u/Brenna)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2026, 3:09pm UTC](https://discuss.opensanctions.org/t/technical-updates-for-march-2026/258/1 "2026-03-04T15:09:14Z")

</div>

Hi everyone!

Here are this month’s highlights for upcoming changes, allowing you to adjust your integration in advance. Please take a minute to review and plan any updates.

## 🌊 Bulk changes to be applied March 16

Taking customer feedback into account, we’re starting to **group changes that affect a large number of entities**. This way, organizations using our data for monitoring are advised when a large day-to-day delta is expected to occur.

To continuously improve our data product, we cannot entirely avoid data changes. While we believe the changes we make improve the database, making it more precise and easier to use, we also understand the technical challenge of processing large sets of changes.

To that end, we’re grouping these changes so you can expect big differences on one date, two weeks after this bulletin. Here are the changes that will come into effect on **March 16, 2026** :

### Harmonizing PEP to use `citizenship`, adding `wikipediaUrl`

For national legislatures, we’ll aim to identify the country that a PEP is linked to using their `citizenship` property rather than their `country` or `nationality`. We also plan to include Wikipedia article links in some PEP profiles. This change will touch more than 200,000 entities.

_Properties affected: `Person:citizenship`, `Person:nationality`, `Person:country`_  
_Datasets affected: Multiple PEP datasets, including Wikidata_

### Stricter thresholds for importing PEPs from Wikidata

We’re going to apply more restrictive filters in how we identify individuals from Wikidata as PEPs. This will remove ca. 3000 PEPs from the database — some of whom are deceased historical figures.

_Datasets affected: Wikidata_

### Trim ZIP+4 to standard ZIP codes

ZIP codes in the US are at least 5 digits, with an optional 4-digit extension for added detail. We’ve decided to normalize on the first 5 for consistency and predictability, and will thus be removing all of the extras.

_Properties affected: `Address:postalCode`_  
_Datasets affected: Mostly Medicare/Medicaid debarment lists_

### Updated entity IDs in the Türkiye Grand National Assembly dataset

The Türkiye Grand National Assembly dataset will now include birth years for MPs.

_Properties affected: `Person:birthDate`_  
_Datasets affected: Türkiye Grand National Assembly_

## Upcoming changes

### New property: `abbreviation` ([changelog](https://www.opensanctions.org/changelog/39/))

_Effective date (end of backwards compatibility): 2026-09_

A new `abbreviation` property will store shortened entity names (e.g. ANC, IKEA) separately from full names, allowing more precise matching on acronyms. For backward compatibility, values are currently copied to `weakAlias` — **this backstop will be removed in September 2026.** Data users are advised to integrate the new property before then. Support was added in [yente 5.1.0](https://www.opensanctions.org/faq/160/yente-upgrade/).

### Format change: `statements.csv` ([changelog](https://www.opensanctions.org/changelog/40/))

_Effective date: 2026-05_

We will remove internal metadata statements (identified by the `id` property name) from the [statements.csv](https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/statements/) export in May 2026, as they are not part of the data payload and have caused confusion. See the [changelog](https://www.opensanctions.org/changelog/40/) for more.

### Migration of billing system to Stripe ([changelog](https://www.opensanctions.org/changelog/37/))

_Effective date: Q1 2026_

We are migrating billing for both API and bulk data customers from Chargebee to Stripe. See the [changelog](https://www.opensanctions.org/changelog/32/) or contact [Support](mailto:support@opensanctions.org) for more details.

## Dataset removals and deprecations

**🗑 CIA World Factbook** — `us_cia_world_factbook`  
Deprecated by source on 4 February, will be removed 16 March. Read more [here](https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/spotlighting-the-world-factbook-as-we-bid-a-fond-farewell/).

**🗑 HMT/OFSI Consolidated List** — `gb_hmt_sanctions`  
Went into effect 28 January. Replace all dataset references to `gb_hmt_sanctions` with `gb_fcdo_sanctions`. See [changelog](https://www.opensanctions.org/changelog/38/).

**🗑 Kazakh Terrorist and Terror Financing lists** — `kz_afmrk_sanctions`  
No longer accessible from the official source and now deprecated. Will be removed on 31 March. Read more [here](https://github.com/opensanctions/opensanctions/issues/2825#issuecomment-3718456164).

## New Datasets

- 🆕 **Italy Senate members:** [`it_senate`](https://www.opensanctions.org/datasets/it_senate/)
- 🆕 **Finland Parliament members:** [`fi_eduskunta`](https://www.opensanctions.org/datasets/fi_eduskunta/)
- 🆕 **Hungary National Assembly members:** [`hu_national_assembly`](https://www.opensanctions.org/datasets/hu_national_assembly/)
- 🆕 **Norway Parliament members:** [`no_storting`](https://www.opensanctions.org/datasets/no_storting/)
- 🆕 **Singapore MAS enforcement actions:** [`sg_mas_enforcement_actions`](https://www.opensanctions.org/datasets/sg_mas_enforcement_actions/)
- 🆕 **US BIS Anti-Boycott Enforcement:** [`us_bis_antiboycott`](https://www.opensanctions.org/datasets/us_bis_antiboycott/)
- 🆕 **US BIS Denied Persons:** [`us_bis_denied`](https://www.opensanctions.org/datasets/us_bis_denied/)
- 🆕 **Bosnia and Herzegovina Register of Companies:** [`ext_ba_companies`](https://www.opensanctions.org/datasets/ext_ba_companies/)
- 🆕 **Kingdom of Jordan National Sanctions List:** [`jo_sanctions`](https://www.opensanctions.org/datasets/jo_sanctions/)
- 🆕 **Sweden State-Owned Enterprises Leadership:** [`se_soe`](https://www.opensanctions.org/datasets/se_soe/)

## Recent changes

### 🚨 Breaking change: Migration from features to explanations in /match responses ([changelog](https://www.opensanctions.org/changelog/29/))

_Effective date: 2026-03-02_

Our two-step migration in the /match API response format that affects users relying on the `features` and `matcher` fields is now complete. See the changelog for details, but:

- The `matcher` field in `/match` responses has been removed. Equivalent information is available via the `/algorithms` route (free to use).
- The `features` field has been removed. Users should have updated their applications to consume `explanations`.

## 📚 Quick reference

- [**Data dictionary**](https://www.opensanctions.org/reference/) — Full property and schema documentation
- [**Changelog**](https://www.opensanctions.org/changelog/) — A record of all data and API changes
- [**Status page**](https://status.opensanctions.org/) — Live service status and incident history
- [**Crawler planning**](https://github.com/orgs/opensanctions/projects/2) — See what’s in progress and vote on priorities. Submit new data source requests via the [request form](https://github.com/orgs/opensanctions/projects/2) or email [support@opensanctions.org](mailto:support@opensanctions.org)