datashare.icij.org

Before you commit to Datashare, verify four things: whether you can actually get in (account, invitation, or local install), whether it handles your document types and languages, what the site says about data handling and terms, and whether its scale and security model match your research. Datashare is an ICIJ project built for searching large document sets, so it fits investigative and archival work better than small one-off file reviews.

Access: hosted site vs. local install

Datashare is open-source software from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The practical question is which entry point you need.

• Hosted access at datashare.icij.org is intended for journalists and partners working with ICIJ-related document sets. Access is typically granted through ICIJ rather than open self-registration, so confirm your eligibility before planning around it.
• A local installation is the route for your own documents. You run Datashare on your own machine or server, and your files stay in your environment.

Check before starting:

1. Whether you qualify for hosted access, or whether you should install locally.
2. The hardware you have — Datashare is designed for large corpora, so disk space and memory matter more than for a simple file search tool.
3. Who will administer the instance if you install it for a team.

Document types and languages

Datashare is built for text-heavy collections: PDFs, Office documents, emails, and scanned files that need OCR before they become searchable. It supports multilingual search, which matters if your corpus mixes languages.

Before uploading anything, test a small sample:

• Run OCR on a few scanned pages and check the extracted text quality.
• Search for a term you know appears in a document and confirm it is found.
• Try a query in each language present in your set.

If your material is mostly images, audio, or structured databases, Datashare is a weaker fit than a purpose-built tool.

Terms, privacy, and data handling

Read the site's terms and privacy information before uploading sensitive material. Two distinctions matter:

• Hosted use means your documents sit on infrastructure you do not control. Confirm what the terms say about retention, access, and deletion.
• Local use keeps files in your environment, but you are then responsible for security, backups, and access control.

For confidential sources or leaked material, treat the hosting question as a decision, not a detail. If the terms do not clearly address your sensitivity requirements, default to a local install you control.

Scale and sensitivity fit

Datashare earns its place when a collection is too large to review by hand and you need cross-document search, entity extraction, and filtering. It is overkill for a handful of files.

Use this quick check:

A practical first test

Pick 20–50 representative documents, including at least one scanned file and one in a second language. Index them, run three searches you can verify by hand, and check OCR output on the scanned file. If results are accurate and the interface fits your workflow, scale up. If OCR quality or language handling fails at this size, it will not improve on a larger corpus.

The main risks are assuming hosted access is open when it is not, and uploading sensitive files before reading the terms. Resolve both before you invest time in indexing.

Datashare (datashare.icij.org) is designed for searching and exploring large document collections — especially leaked, investigative, and public-interest archives — rather than for creating or editing documents. It fits workflows where a researcher needs to find, filter, and read across thousands of files instead of writing new ones. Because the site provides no feature list or format documentation, confirm specific supported file types and capabilities inside the application itself before relying on them.

The document sets it targets

Datashare is built around the kind of material that investigative journalists and researchers accumulate in bulk:

• Leaked archives — large dumps of emails, messages, and internal files that need to be sifted for relevant names, dates, and topics.
• Public-interest document collections — published records, reports, and correspondence that a team wants to search as one corpus.
• Mixed-format folders — real-world archives rarely arrive neatly organized, so the tool is aimed at collections where many files sit together and need to be queried at once.

The common thread is volume and heterogeneity: the value comes from querying across the whole set, not from opening files one at a time.

The research tasks it supports

The core workflow is search-and-explore, not authoring. In practice that means:

1. Loading a collection into the tool so its contents become searchable.
2. Querying by terms, names, or phrases to surface matching documents.
3. Filtering and narrowing results to a manageable set.
4. Reading and reviewing the documents that match, then iterating with new queries.

This is the opposite of a word processor or spreadsheet: you are not producing a deliverable inside the tool, you are locating and examining material that already exists.

A concrete example

Suppose a newsroom receives a folder of several thousand emails and attachments from a single organization. Rather than opening each file, an investigator loads the folder into Datashare, searches for a project name or a person's surname, filters the hits by date or file type, and reads the matching documents to build a timeline. Each answer prompts a follow-up query — a name found in one email becomes the next search term.

What to verify before you commit

The available site information does not list supported formats, indexing behavior, or specific features. Before adopting it for a project, check inside the app:

• Which file types it can ingest and search (text documents, email formats, spreadsheets, PDFs, and so on).
• Whether it handles scanned or image-only files, and how.
• What filtering options exist beyond keyword search.
• How collections are organized and whether results can be exported.

Treat any capability not confirmed in the application as unverified. If your archive contains formats the tool does not handle, plan to convert or exclude those files first.

Who it suits — and who it doesn't

The deciding question is scale and purpose: if you need to interrogate a big, messy collection of existing documents, Datashare is aimed at that job; if you need to produce documents or work with a handful of files, it is the wrong tool.

Yes—Datashare is connected to ICIJ, and the clearest evidence is the domain itself: datashare.icij.org is a subdomain of icij.org, the site of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. That placement indicates an ICIJ-related service, but it does not, by itself, confirm which datasets are loaded, who can access them, or what partnerships sit behind any particular document set. Treat the domain as a signal of institutional origin, not as proof of provenance for the material you find inside.

What the ICIJ connection tells you

ICIJ is known for large-scale investigative journalism projects built on leaked and public-interest document sets. That background is useful context for understanding why a tool like Datashare exists: it is the kind of software newsrooms use to search, filter, and analyze big document collections.

What the connection supports:

• Institutional origin. The service sits under ICIJ's own domain rather than an unrelated third party.
• Purpose fit. A document-search and analysis tool aligns with investigative journalism workflows.
• A starting point for trust. You can reasonably begin from the assumption that the service is intended for document research.

What it does not support:

• A specific dataset list. The available page information does not confirm which collections are present.
• Access rights. Nothing in the supplied material states who may log in or what is public.
• Partnership claims. Do not assume a given document set is endorsed by or shared with a named partner.

Why provenance still needs checking inside the app

A subdomain tells you where a service lives, not where each document came from. In investigative document tools, provenance is usually carried by the documents and metadata themselves—source labels, collection names, upload context, or notes attached to a dataset. If you need to cite or rely on a document, verify its origin within the application rather than inferring it from the hostname.

For example, if you are preparing a report and need to state where a record came from, check the document's own metadata and the collection it belongs to before writing a source line. The domain gives you the platform; the document gives you the evidence.

Practical way to verify before you rely on data

1. Confirm the entry point. Start at datashare.icij.org and note what the interface presents—public search, sign-in, or a project-specific view.
2. Identify the collection. Before searching, find which dataset or project you are querying and read any description attached to it.
3. Check document-level context. Open a result and look for source, date, and collection metadata.
4. Separate platform from content. Record "accessed via Datashare (ICIJ)" and, separately, the document's own stated origin.
5. Flag gaps. If provenance is unclear, treat the document as unverified rather than filling the gap with assumptions about ICIJ.

Bottom line

Datashare's placement on an icij.org subdomain supports describing it as an ICIJ-related service, and ICIJ's investigative-journalism reputation is reasonable background. But the connection does not certify specific datasets, access levels, or partnerships. Verify provenance inside the application before you rely on or cite any document.

To get started, open https://datashare.icij.org in a web browser. That hostname is the entry point for ICIJ's Datashare; once the page loads, look for the sign-in option or a search box to begin. Whether you need an account, and what access level you get, is set by the site itself — check the page for its current sign-in and access requirements rather than assuming open access.

What you'll see when the site opens

Datashare is ICIJ's platform for searching and researching large document sets. The public site is the front door to that material, so the first screen is where you decide how to proceed:

• A sign-in or account prompt — if the site asks you to log in, follow its own instructions for creating or using an account.
• A search field — if search is available without signing in, you can start with a name, organization, country, or keyword.
• Project or dataset listings — where the site presents available collections, use them to pick a starting point.

The exact layout can change, so treat the page in front of you as the source of truth for what's offered.

A practical first session

1. Open the site. Go to datashare.icij.org in a current browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge).
2. Read the landing page. Note any sign-in button, search box, or links to documentation and help.
3. Handle access first. If a login is required, complete it before searching; if not, go straight to search.
4. Run a narrow search. Start with one specific term — a person, company, or place — rather than a broad topic. A narrow query is easier to judge: you can tell quickly whether results are relevant.
5. Check what a result actually is. Open a result and confirm the document type, date, and source before relying on it.
6. Verify before you cite. Cross-check anything important against the original document or a second source.

Expected result: after step 4 you should see a results list you can scan; after step 5 you should know whether the collection covers your topic at all.

Common sticking points

• You can't find a search box. The site may require sign-in first, or search may sit behind a project page. Look for a login link or a "search" or "explore" entry.
• You're asked for credentials you don't have. Access rules are set by the site; check its help or account pages for how access is granted instead of guessing.
• Results are thin. Try alternate spellings, related names, or a broader term, and check whether you're searching within the right collection.
• You're unsure a document is genuine or complete. Treat search results as leads. Confirm details in the underlying document and note its date and context.

What to expect, and what not to assume

Datashare is built for document-heavy research — searching across large sets of files and pulling out relevant records. It is not a general web search engine, and results reflect whatever collections the site hosts.

This guide can't tell you whether registration is free, which datasets are public, or what each access tier includes, because those details aren't confirmed here. Check the site directly for current terms, and don't assume free or unrestricted access until the page says so.

Datashare is a browser-based document search platform associated with ICIJ, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. It is used to search and explore large document collections. The site itself is a web application you reach at datashare.icij.org; beyond its name, hostname, and association with ICIJ, the page provides no further confirmed details about features, access rules, or pricing.

What the site confirms

The available page evidence is limited to the site name and hostname. That supports three conclusions:

• It is a web application. You access it through a browser at datashare.icij.org rather than installing a desktop tool.
• It is tied to ICIJ. The hostname sits under the icij.org domain, the organization known for cross-border investigative reporting.
• Its focus is document search. The name and the platform's known role point to searching and exploring document collections rather than publishing articles.

Anything beyond this — specific search syntax, supported file types, account requirements, or cost — is not confirmed by the page and should be checked directly on the site.

Who it is for

Based on its purpose as a document-search platform, the likely users are:

• Journalists working with large sets of leaked or public documents who need to find names, entities, or passages across thousands of files.
• Researchers who need to locate specific records inside a corpus too large to read manually.
• Anyone exploring a published document collection who wants to search rather than browse.

If your task is simply to read ICIJ's reporting, the main ICIJ website is the better entry point. Datashare is for searching the documents themselves.

How to approach it

1. Open datashare.icij.org in a browser. Expect a search interface rather than a marketing page.
2. Identify which document collection you are searching. Large investigative datasets are usually organized by project, so confirm the scope before you start.
3. Search with specific terms — names, company names, dates, or distinctive phrases — and refine from the results.
4. Verify what you find against the source document, since search results are pointers, not conclusions.

Common sticking points: access may be restricted for some collections, and the interface may differ from general web search. Check the site's own guidance for the collection you are using.

What to verify before relying on it

Because the page evidence does not cover features, access, or pricing, confirm the following on the site itself:

• Whether you need an account or invitation to search a given collection.
• Which document sets are available and how they are organized.
• Whether there are usage limits or terms attached to the data.

Treat Datashare as a search layer over document archives: useful for locating material quickly, but not a substitute for reading and checking the underlying documents.