# Background Check API

### Introduction

Harpie's Background Check API screens any Ethereum address, letting you know if it's been involved in hacking, phishing, and other cybercrime. Our results are human-readable and actionable, giving you and your users peace-of-mind while using the blockchain.

Additionally, our background checks let you know if a contract is associated with a protocol: we have a database of over 800,000 smart contracts, along with their deployer and contract name (ex. `Curvefi: 3pool`).

<figure><img src="https://968617169-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2Fx4BnZvpxWqcNAcwPX7lV%2Fuploads%2FNaQsyNsoSVgzRPjbj1Rf%2FScreenshot%202023-05-15%20at%2011.48.52%20AM.png?alt=media&#x26;token=f2a07f30-dc3a-4648-9f38-3a862dc0cfa9" alt=""><figcaption><p>An example background check</p></figcaption></figure>

### How it works

We've developed a big-data engine with help from some of Ethereum's most famous data engineers. Using on-chain data, police reports, and other data, we've indexed over 1.8 million malicious addresses and 800,000 verified smart contracts.

### Getting Started

To find your API key, log in to to your dashboard at <https://harpie.io/rpc/enterprise/login>. You can try out some of our API methods using a rate limited API key (10 requests/minute):

Test Key: 74778fa4-88a8-4e35-922a-02bd82005edd

### Main Methods

<table data-card-size="large" data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Validate Address</strong></td><td>Get a background check on any address: see if it's involved in theft or associated with a protocol.</td><td></td><td><a href="background-check-api/validate-address">validate-address</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Validate Transaction</strong></td><td>See if a transaction will end up sending assets to a malicious address.</td><td></td><td><a href="background-check-api/validate-transaction">validate-transaction</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

### Other Methods

<table data-card-size="large" data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Get Contract Name</strong></td><td>Look up a contract's name.</td><td></td><td><a href="background-check-api/get-contract-name">get-contract-name</a></td></tr></tbody></table>


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