Source Registry

Short answer

The source registry lists the source families used across Private Pierce research, how they are tiered, and which primary sources back each claim category. Every load-bearing factual claim on the site traces to a source in this registry or carries a typed unknown. Pages are updated as sources and systems change; source families are updated when new source types are added.

What this page is

A directory of source families, source tiers, and citation discipline. It complements the methodology page (/about/methodology/) by listing specific sources and their roles, rather than the abstract research process.

Source families

Tier 1 — Secretary of State portals and forms

State business registries, formation forms, annual-report instructions, UCC portals. These are primary sources for formation-exposure claims. Evidence gathered by direct portal observation or bulk-data snapshot.

Tier 2 — Federal regulators

FinCEN (BOI / CTA), FTC (data broker orders), IRS (EIN / tax filing exposure), Treasury (OFAC, sanctions), CISA (critical infrastructure), CBP (travel / entry). Primary sources for BOI, KYC, and federal-reporting claims.

Tier 3 — State regulators

Attorney general, privacy regulator, consumer-protection office, tax agency. Primary sources for state-law claims about data brokers, right to delete, and privacy legislation.

Tier 4 — Court and recorder portals

PACER, state court portals, county recorders, property assessors. Primary sources for court-record and lien-record exposure claims.

Tier 5 — Official portal-behavior observations

Direct portal fetches or browser tests of public portals with date and access method recorded. Primary sources for searchability and field-visibility claims where portal behavior is the fact being measured.

Tier 6 — Company documentation

Bank KYC policies, card-issuer terms, loyalty-program terms. Primary sources for financial and travel system exposure claims.

Tier 7 — International regulators

Telecom regulators, data-protection authorities (GDPR), immigration agencies. Sources for cross-border exposure claims.

Tier 8 — Law trackers

NCSL, IAPP, UNCTAD, Freedom House, GSMA. Used as cross-checks on regulatory-landscape claims, not as primary sources for specific legal facts.

Tier 9 — Reputable reports

Industry, academic, and policy reports. Used for aggregate or survey-derived claims where no primary-official source exists.

Tier 10 — Journalism

For reputation-surface and OSINT context; not used as primary sources for legal or regulatory claims.

Citation discipline

Secondary sources cross-check primary sources. Critical claims do not rely on secondary-only evidence unless explicitly tagged. Every claim that cannot be sourced carries a typed unknown rather than a silent gap.

The full methodology is at /about/methodology/. The dataset catalog, which lists machine-readable evidence companions, is at /about/dataset-catalog/.