Data & methodology

OSHA Radar is an enforcement-intelligence service built entirely on public U.S. government records. Nothing on a brief is invented: every number, date, and deadline traces to a source row, and computed figures are labeled “estimated.”

Sources (all public, all free)

• DOL Open Data Portal — OSHA Enforcement. Inspections, violations, penalties. Our bulk backbone, pulled nightly.
• OSHA Establishment Search (IMIS). The fastest public well — federal citations typically appear days after employer receipt. Used to keep recent windows fresh.
• OSHA Severe Injury Reports. Employer-reported hospitalizations and amputations — fuel for Early Radar.

Freshness, measured

Every freshness claim we make cites our running latency audit — we track fresh inspections daily through both public wells and publish when each stage actually appears.

# Freshness Latency Table

_Updated 2026-08-14 by `make latency`. Monitoring began 2026-08-13._

Every freshness claim in our copy cites this table and nothing else.

**Method.** Lag = days between a citation's issuance date and the first time our pipeline observed it. Only citations issued *after monitoring began* count: we backfilled three years of history in one pass, and those records were all first seen on the day we crawled them, so including them would report each record's age as if it were publishing delay.

| Well | Citations measured since monitoring began | Median lag | 90th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bulk API (DOL v4) | 0 | — | — |
| Establishment search (IMIS) | 0 | — | — |

**Not enough observation time yet** (need 25+ citations per well published while we were watching). No freshness figure may be quoted until this fills in — the site's freshness section stays hidden meanwhile.

Observed so far, and not inflatable by backfill: the fastest lag we have ever seen is **34 days** via the bulk API and **36 days** via the establishment search.

**Fast-well exclusives right now: 15** — inspections whose citations we have published and the bulk dataset still has not.

## Warehouse inventory

- Inspections: **215,502** across 56 states/territories
- Citations: **399,469** · total current penalties **$957,320,358**
- Accident/injury records: **3,885**
- Coverage: 2023-08-15 → today · newest citation seen: 2026-07-10

_Lag = days between the citation's issuance date and the first time our pipeline observed it. Records are never deleted from the warehouse, so this table only sharpens with time._

Contact coverage, by state

A named officer beats a switchboard, and officer data is public — but every state publishes it differently and several registries block automated access outright. Rather than imply uniform coverage, here is exactly what we hold. We never work around a registry's access controls; where automation is refused, a human does the lookup.

Federal vs state-plan jurisdictions

Twenty-two states run their own OSHA plans for private employers. Their citations reach the federal record later — commonly up to 30 days. Leads from those states carry a STATE PLAN badge and a small ranking discount, because a record that looks equally fresh is not.

What we will never do

• · Manufacture urgency — every clock is computed from dates in the record.
• · Mock cited employers. We serve the professionals who help them fix it.
• · Publish a claim about a named company that hasn't passed human review.
• · Imply government affiliation. OSHA Radar is an independent service built on public U.S. Department of Labor records. Not affiliated with or endorsed by OSHA or any government agency.

Government records may contain errors and are revised; penalties change through settlement and contest. We honor documented corrections — disputes: reply to any brief or email us.