Etalab, the French agency in charge of Open Data in France, and INSEE (Institut National de la Statistiques et des Etudes Economiques) – the French national agency for statistics, organised in November a hackathon to test and use the data of the SIRENE (Système informatique pour le répertoire des entreprises et des établissements) database which will be published as open data in January.

This database, maintained by INSEE, is the national registry of companies in France. The SIRENE registry contains the name, address, SIREN and SIRET number (the ID of company in France), the employees, the creation date, and the legal status of a company. 

The data will be made available around 4 January 2017, Etalab mentioned. INSEE and Etalab provided dedicated datasets for the hackathon (OpenSirene). Attendees were asked not to disclose any data before the official opening.

10 projects to improve and re-use Sirene data

Ten projects emerged from OpenSirene, whose goal was to improve the quality, or to re-use the data. A group of experts linked the data with other national database to create a global and effective registry of companies. For example, Sirene’s data were used in conjunction with the INPI database (Institut National de la Propriété Intellectuelle – IP registry) or the registry of DILA (Direction de l'Information Légale et Administrative).

One of the projects also connected Sirene’s data to OpenStreetMap to pinpoint differences between the two sources. Data were previously geo-referenced by Etalab, using the national database of geo-referenced addresses in France (BAN).

“Boost Emploi” was one of the projects that were re-using data. It combines Sirene’s data with data related to regional employment analysis to fight unemployment. Representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture also worked on mapping agricultural exploitations which were affected by a disaster. Moreover, it could be used to improve the compensation payment.