How GroundTruthData works

GroundTruthData answers questions about places in South Africa (crime, population and rainfall for police stations, wards, municipalities and provinces) inside the AI assistant you already use. Every number comes with its source.

What you doCopy Anchor Link

1. Connect GroundTruthData to your assistant once (see the Quickstart).
2. Ask a normal question, for example: "How did murders change in Khayelitsha last year?"
3. Your assistant looks up the figures with our tools and answers with a citation, in this shape (the figures below are placeholders, not real numbers; see the Tool reference for real responses):

SAPS recorded N murders at a named police station in a financial year. Source: South African Police Service, Crime Statistics. Note: these are crimes recorded by police, not all crime. Figures cover the police station's area.

Where the numbers come fromCopy Anchor Link

1. Public sources only. We use published, publicly available data: SAPS crime statistics, Municipal Demarcation Board ward and municipal boundaries, WorldPop population estimates, CHIRPS satellite rainfall and OpenStreetMap facility counts. We never get around logins, and we collect politely. See Coverage for each source and its licence.
2. No personal information. We keep only approved fields. Names, ID numbers and contact details are dropped before anything is stored.
3. Lined up on one map. Each source uses its own map (police station areas, wards, satellite grids). We line them up so figures can be given per ward, municipality or province. Crime stays at police station and province level, because police areas do not match wards.
4. Defined metrics. Every figure we serve has a name, a clear definition and its caveats. Your assistant can ask what is available at any time.

What you get backCopy Anchor Link

Every answer includes:

• Citations: the source, publisher, licence, the date we retrieved it and the data version.
• Caveats: for example, that a population figure is a modelled estimate, not a census.
• Summaries, not downloads: totals, averages and comparisons, with limits on size. We do not offer bulk exports of the underlying data.

See Citations and provenance and Tools for the details.

Signing in, keys and plansCopy Anchor Link

• Connectors (Claude, ChatGPT) send you to groundtruthdata.co.za to sign in and approve access. See Authentication. Connector sign-in is coming at launch; until then, use an API key.
• API keys are for scripts and agents. Create them in your dashboard. A key is shown once; we store only a scrambled fingerprint of it.
• Plans are flat monthly subscriptions with clear daily and monthly limits. No credits and no surprise overage charges. When you reach a limit, the tool says so and tells you when it resets. See Plans and limits.