ID Changelog

To read more about our persistent ID logic, please consult our Persistent IDs page.

❗️

Upcoming Breaking Change!

Change Expected In: v25 / January 2024

We are rebuilding our changelog to include only the most relevant information. The Person changelog will no longer contain every record in our dataset, instead it will only contain IDs with changes. Additionally, the categories of changes in the Person changelog going forward will be limited to:

  • merged
  • added
  • opted-out
  • deleted
  • updated

version_status Field

Data license customers have an additional field appended to each data license profile: a version_status for the ID. This object tracks the previous and current dataset version, any other persistent IDs that were merged into this record using improved entity resolution, and the status of the record. Records still existing in the dataset can have one of the three following statuses: added, updated or unchanged. Records can also have a null version_status if they are not in any of our license datasets.

ID Changelog

We also provide an additional changelog that includes all six statuses (with moved, opted_out and deleted records included) as a flat file in this public AWS bucket. Here is a description of each status:

Status             Frequency       Description                                                              
added commonThis record was not in a previous build.
deleted very rareThis ID was removed due to a source-level removal.
moved variableLess common than added and updated and will vary from build to build based on linkage improvements.
opted_out very rareThis ID was removed due to an opt-out on our website.
unchanged commonNo new data sources have been added to the record. However, parsing and standardization improvements may have been made.
updated commonA new data source contributed to this record.

Additional Metadata

Some of the statuses listed in the table above will also contain the following metadata:

Metadata FieldCorresponding Version StatusDescription
containsupdatedThe persistent IDs of any records that existed in a previous version and have been merged before or during the current version.
tomovedThe persistent ID that this record has been assigned in the current version.

Sample Changelogs

{
    "previous_version": "14.0",
    "current_version": "15.0",
    "status": "added",
    "additional_meta": None
}
{
    "previous_version": "14.0",
    "current_version": "15.0",
    "status": "deleted",
    "additional_meta": None
}
{
    "previous_version": "14.0",
    "current_version": "15.0",
    "status": "moved",
    "additional_meta": {
        "to": "abcabc"
    }
}
{
    "previous_version": "14.0",
    "current_version": "15.0",
    "status": "opted_out",
    "additional_meta": None
}
{
    "previous_version": "14.0",
    "current_version": "15.0",
    "status": "unchanged",
    "additional_meta": None
}
{
    "previous_version": "14.0",
    "current_version": "15.0",
    "status": "updated",
    "additional_meta": {
        "contains": ["123123",...]
    }
}