Paper Trail Frequently Asked Questions

What data is in Paper Trail?

Paper Trail is data about companies and organizations. It has lobbyist registrations and communications, procurement awards, and fulfilled federal Access to Information requests. It is sourced entirely from our existing databases. 

Every company or organization included is a grouping of many names by which that entity has disclosed data to the government. Without Paper Trail, all these different names would appear separately, scattering the data. 

Not every organization is covered by Paper Trail, but the most important ones that appear in our data are. At minimum, it covers all lobbying registrations since September 2025, and all contracts since then worth at least $500,000. We also include any organization we report on and companies in the TSX 100. More than 80% of all dollars in the procurement data are covered. 

How do you use AI?

IJF staff have personally reviewed every name of every organization in Paper Trail. We built a software system which includes the use of an LLM to make suggestions to these reviewers. However, nothing appears on the site until someone on staff has reviewed it manually. As of September 2026, more than two dozen reviewers have reviewed a total of 176,000 different names.

Why can’t I find a company or organization I know exists?

The entity may not have disclosed activity either in lobbying or in government contracting, which are the data sources included in Paper Trail. Additionally, even if they have, their activity may fall outside of the thresholds we are maintaining. See “What data is in Paper Trail?”

What does this field on the site mean?

Paper Trail harmonizes data from multiple other IJF databases. Many figures in Paper Trail have tooltips, which when hovered over give brief explanations. For more information, see the methodologies for our Procurement and Lobbying databases.