Adverse Media Screening

Adverse Media Screening searches the open web for negative press, legal proceedings, and regulatory actions related to individuals and companies. The platform uses multi-source web intelligence with AI-powered article classification to surface relevant risk signals.

How It Works

1. Search Input

Navigate to Dashboard > Adverse Media and enter:

• Query — Name of the individual or company (minimum 2 characters)
• Search Type — Toggle between PERSON and COMPANY mode

The platform generates smart query variations to maximize coverage (e.g., including common aliases, legal entity suffixes, jurisdiction-specific terms).

2. Multi-Source Search

Searches are executed across multiple web intelligence layers:

| Layer | Source | Coverage | |---|---|---| | Primary | Brave Search API | Full web — social, blogs, news, court records | | Fallback | DuckDuckGo | Full web — no API key required, broad coverage | | Supplement | GDELT + Google News | News-specific — global media monitoring |

Results are automatically deduplicated across sources to prevent redundant findings.

3. AI Article Classification

Up to 20 articles are analyzed using AI to extract:

• Severity Level — CRITICAL, HIGH, MEDIUM, or LOW
• Category — One or more of:
  • Fraud
  • Terrorism
  • Corruption
  • Tax Evasion
  • Money Laundering
  • Regulatory Action
  • Environmental
  • Legal Proceedings
• Relevance Score (0–100%) — How closely the article relates to the searched entity
• Mentioned Persons — Other individuals named in the article
• Mentioned Companies — Other organizations referenced
• Summary — AI-generated synopsis of the article's key findings

4. Risk Assessment

The platform computes an overall risk score (0–100) based on:

• Number and severity of articles found
• Category distribution (terrorism and sanctions articles weigh more heavily)
• Recency of publications
• Source credibility

A critical issue indicator is flagged when 3 or more CRITICAL-severity articles are found.

Understanding Results

Each article in the results shows:

• Severity bar — Color-coded left border (red = critical, orange = high, yellow = medium, green = low)
• Title and source — Direct link to the original article
• Publication date — When the article was published
• Category tags — Visual badges for each detected category
• Relevance score — Percentage match to the queried entity
• Expandable details — Full AI summary, mentioned persons, and mentioned companies

Caching

To optimize performance and reduce API calls:

• Person queries are cached for 24 hours
• Company queries are cached for 48 hours

Cached results are served instantly on repeat searches within the cache window.

Integration with Other Modules

Adverse Media findings are automatically incorporated into:

• Corporate Risk Assessment — Articles flagged as CRITICAL contribute to the overall corporate risk score
• KYB Reports — Adverse media is a dedicated section in KYB due diligence reports

Pricing

Adverse Media searches count against your Name & Entity Screening subscription quota. Each search consumes one check from your monthly allocation.

Best Practices

1. Search both person and company — An individual may have clean personal results but be linked to a flagged company
2. Review LOW severity articles — They may contain early warning signals before a story escalates
3. Check mentioned persons — Co-mentioned individuals may warrant their own screening
4. Re-screen periodically — Media coverage changes rapidly; set up monitoring for ongoing relationships