Understanding the Inside of Your Due Diligence Report

Types of Information	Definition	Examples	Included (Y/N)
Public Domain Information	Everything that is not protected by copyright or as intellectual property, i.e., can be freely used by anyone without permission.	Search engine result (ie: Google)	Y
Open Source Information	Information that is made available for “public consumption” and typically has an owner. Typically, this data is free, but may be subject to some licensing and copyright requirements.	Distributed to a public audience (e.g. news) Could be seen or heard by any casual observer Made available at a meeting open to the public Obtained by visiting any place or attending any event that is open to the public	Y
Publicly and Legally Available Information	The term includes data that is public domain and open source. The difference is this is data that anyone may legally access – some of which may be only available upon request. Some information may require a subscription or fee to access. Differs from public domain in that some of that information may be protected by copyright, privacy or intellectual property regulations.	Public records such as company registrations, court databases, proprietary databases such as PEP lists Subscription/fee-based media such as industry journals, specialty publications, etc.	Y
Non-Public or Private Information	Confidential data that typically should not be available for anyone’s access without an explicit consent.	Personal Identifiable Information such as medical history, social insurance/security numbers, identification numbers, etc. Private companies’ financials Legal documents	N

Understanding the Inside of Your Due Diligence Report

A quick cheat sheet covering the different types of information and whether or not they’re used in your reports.