CruzaGrafos project is open to the general public

As of today, the CruzaGrafos project is open to the general public, without the need to be a member of Abraji (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism). The initiative allows for advanced visual journalistic investigations in databases of millions of lines.

People who are interested in using CruzaGrafos, except if they are members of Abraji, just need to complete a form. For people outside Brazil click here.

The project is a work of more than a year carried out by the teams of Abraji and the programmer and transparency activist Álvaro Justen, Turicas, with the support of the Google News Initiative. In a nutshell, CruzaGrafos is a free software graphical tool for cross-checking and advanced data investigations, by making it possible to visualize relationships in graphs, which allow the interconnection of various information in a kind of web.

The initiative aims to be much more than that by allowing journalists and researchers to investigate huge databases, without the need to be experts in data science. The authors of the project understand that knowledge and understanding of large public databases is one of the ways to improve investigative journalism and social control over governments and companies.

CruzaGrafos uses large open information sources in Brazil. Currently, CruzaGrafos already has 29.4 million records, of which there are 20 million people and 9 million companies, with the Federal Treasury and the Superior Electoral Court as sources. And in the graphics we can see the proximity and the social relationships of all this information. In the coming months, the project will get more updates and more databases.

How access works

Access is allowed for Abraji non-members and associates as long as they complete this form and meet the criteria below:

• Not have a dependent professional relationship exclusively with political parties, with any part of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial powers or with entities that promote business lobbying;
• According to statement 1: There are no perfect databases or it is rare to find a complete source of information about a person or company of public interest. So what we build with CruzaGrafos is a great possibility to find guidelines and relevant information, but that needs to be complemented with more verification;
• According to statement 2: There is no merit assessment of the content of the databases by CruzaGrafos, Abraji, Brasil.IO or the professionals involved in this project. Suspicion of misconduct should be verified with sources and more information and just because someone is investigated does not mean they are guilty. All data must be verified, even with the politicians and companies mentioned. You should always be careful with people and companies of the same name;
• In accordance with statement 3: The CruzaGrafos team does not provide, in any case, any type of advice, consultancy or legal advice when these activities have as attorneys political parties, any body of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Power or from entities that promote business lobbying;
• In accordance with statement 4: During the visit to the website, with the exception of cookie data, personal data will not be automatically collected; information of this nature will only be registered in our databases when a form is voluntarily filled out by the user or an e-mail is sent to [email protected]. When filling out a form or sending an email, your name and email data will be collected for the sole purpose of individualizing your request. The collected data will only be used for the purposes described here, with the guarantee that CruzaGrafos and the idealizing organizations will not sell, share, assign or transmit your personal data to third parties without prior authorization. The consent may be changed by the holder at any time to grant new permissions, withdraw his consent for old permissions and request the deletion of his data from our database.

Within 24 hours (on business days) the request will be answered. Individuals who meet the criteria for use will receive a password via email. Access is free for 30 days; after that, you will be charged USD 5 per month. For Abraji associates and associates, access to CruzaGrafos is free.

Abraji (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism) is a non-profit association whose objectives are the professional improvement of journalists and the dissemination of investigative reporting concepts and techniques. Its pillars are professional training, the defense of freedom of expression and the right of access to public information. And Brasil.IO's mission is to make Brazilian data of public interest accessible and our main values ​​are transparency and collaboration. In this way, everything we produce can be verifiable, because in addition to making data available in open formats, our software is free and we produce it all in a collaborative way.

 Abraji has posted an article about CruzaGrafos, which has an user's guide linked here.

Contact email for questions, criticisms and suggestions: [email protected]