Identity Resolution Daily

[Post from Infoglide] Let’s Be Reasonable

“A recent post, ‘Terrorist Watchlist, Troubling Flaws Revealed’, starts out by making a valid point. If the terrorist watchlist is flawed, then the name matching results against such a list will be flawed. The author then goes on to reach related conclusions through rationalization rather than reasoning.”

Acxiom: Prognostications for the New Year 

“Identity resolution will get its due. Sure, you can call it infrastructure. Processing and rules intensive, customer identity resolution has been relegated to the underlying algorithms of third-party data providers, MDM, and data quality vendors. However, companies are recognizing that they may have unique customer data-matching needs-a bank we work with has more than 50 definitions of a household-and they’ll be looking at smarter, more specialized ways to automate them.”

Dallas Morning News: Dallas Police Department’s Fusion Center outsmarts criminals

“Chief David Kunkle, who championed the unit’s formation in January 2007, refers to it as the “brains” of a department that reported a 10 percent drop in crime last year and a nearly 19 percent decline in the first quarter of this year.”

datanomic: Fractured approaches to Sanctions Screening put UK Companies at risk, says new FSA report

“‘The use of multiple identities is common in the criminal world and Al-Qaeda’s own training manual requires its operatives to use false identities to hide their terrorist activities. Exploiting variations of a criminal’s real name is, perhaps, the simplest way of acquiring a new identity. Typical approaches are to use name variations or switching the order of names,’ added Pearson. ‘Other data, such as dates of birth are often manipulated simply by transposing digits.’”

Cloud Computing Journal: Experian QAS Launches QAS Pro On Demand

“‘By offering address verification in a SaaS model, we are enabling organizations of all sizes to maintain accurate contact data in a cost-effective platform,’ said Joel Curry, chief operating officer, Experian QAS. ‘As businesses change over time, our new infrastructure is able to adapt to shifting demands.’

Share This

[Post from Infoglide] Does Data Matching Qualify as Identity Resolution?

“Any true identity resolution engine must not consist simply of a mathematical matching equation, nor must it rely upon data-deterioration processes such as ETL and data warehousing. Math cannot tell a user that Ian is an acceptable nickname for John, nor can simple mathematical equations point to similarities between the colors grey and charcoal.”

Fiscal Policy Institute: Building Up New York, Tearing Down Job Quality

“As buildings go up in New York City, more and more construction work has gone underground, signifying violation of several employment and tax laws. An estimated 50,000 New York City construction workers—nearly one in four—are either misclassified as independent contractors or employed by construction contractors completely off the books.”

SearchDataManagement: Enterprise-wide customer data quality still elusive at most organizations

“So why do so few organizations use data quality tools for customer data enterprise-wide? The reason, according to some, is that most companies collect and store customer data in numerous data sources spread throughout the organization with no way to connect them. Put another way, lacking a single view of the customer through a master data management (MDM) system or customer data integration (CDI) initiative, organizations lack any realistic way of applying data quality tools enterprise-wide.”

WorkersCompensation.com: Rome Man Accused Of Double Dipping

“A 58-year-old Rome man discovered working after he claimed a job-related injury prevented him from doing so was arrested Thursday on charges that he fraudulently collected $17,940 in workers’ compensation benefits.”

Multichannel Merchant: Retail Crime Up Thanks to Down Economy

“According to the National Retail Federation’s 2008 Returns Fraud Survey, released in November, retailers will see a total of about $219 billion in returns from sales made in 2008 – a 19% increase over the $178 billion in returns recorded in 2007. Of those returns, about $11.8 billion will be fraudulent – an increase of about 8% over last year’s figure of $10.9 billion.”

Share This

By the Infoglide Team

[Post from Infoglide] Identity Resolution Daily: If Only Data Quality Were That Simple

“The most effective approach blends several best-of-class techniques, and it scales without compromising performance. A multifaceted solution combines an extensive rules base for nicknames and abbreviations, heuristics, semantics, and a large array of public and proprietary algorithms and other types of analytics.”

MarketWatch: Fraudulent Doctor Surrenders License, Repays $144K to Texas Mutual

“Between January 2003 and March 2006, Shanti and his clinic over-billed workers’ compensation carriers for pain management services in excess of hours actually attended by patients, according to the indictments.”

IT-Director: The problem with data quality solutions part 4

“A typical case might be where one application required a five digit numeric field and another application requires the same five numbers plus an additional two alphabetic characters. So, here’s a question for data quality vendors: can your software tell the difference?”

SecurityInfoWatch: Police, private security given access to ORCIN database

“‘Right now information sharing between loss prevention security and police officers is very limited to who you know,’ said ORCIN Founder Rudy Bravo ‘This way, if you go onto the Web site and post information (about a retail crime) and send it, it will be sent out to all our members.’”

KARE11.com: Retailers report rise in ‘organized’ shoplifting

“What isn’t clear is whether the apparent rise in organized shoplifting is due mostly to the Internet, where auction sites offer sellers an easy way to make money on never-before-used products, or if the shoplifting is rising as the economy gets worse.”

TravelAgentCentral: ASTA Alerts Agents to 2009 Secure Flight Changes

“ASTA said it is essential that travel agents take steps now to prepare for this new set of procedures and offered specific guidelines agents can use to comply with the new data collection rules.”

Share This

By the Infoglide Team

Intelligent Enterprise: Master Data Management Adoption Going Strong

“Business units and IT departments collaborate, cleanse, publish and protect common information assets that are shared across the enterprise. Gartner, however, cautioned that there is no single technology that meets all MDM user requirements, and products vary by technology, industry, data domain and use case, and many span multiple domains.”

Insurance & Financial Advisor: New York man arrested for workers’ compensation fraud

“Queen is accused of accepting $3,000 in workers’ compensation benefits from the New York State Insurance Fund and stating that he was not working as the result of a job-related knee injury. He later collected $7,000 in workers’ compensation benefits from AIG insurance, claiming an injury to the same knee that prevented him from working.”

CIO: The Ugly Truth About “One Version of the Truth”

“‘Many organizations spend months and endure significant costs to obtain the reporting and analysis capabilities that BI promises,’ Hatch writes, ‘only to find that different ‘versions of the truth’ still exist without any definite way of determining which one is real or accurate.’”

Chronicle Herald: Flight rules raise privacy worries

“The name, gender and birth date of Canadians flying from Toronto to destinations such as Cuba, Mexico or even Europe will be transmitted by airlines to the TSA under its Secure Flight program, to take effect next year. The agency will then vet the names against security watch lists aimed at keeping dangerous people on the ground.”

DN/Online: Ask me about my panties

“Retail theft is on the rise and the National Retail Federation said in its 2008 report that 68 percent of retailers have been able to identify or recover stolen merchandise and gift cards on online auction sites, 61 percent more than last year. The report also indicated that 63 percent have seen an increase in e fencing selling stolen items on online auction sites - activity in the last year.”

Seacoastonline.com: Beware organized crime online

“Organized retail crime involves the organized theft of retail merchandise that is resold to consumers through online auction sites and through other outlets, like local flea markets. These organized crime rings target over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, baby formula, tobacco cessation products, pregnancy strips, diabetic test strips, cosmetics and similar types of personal care items.”

bobsguide: Recession gives rise to online fraud fears

“Business Journal said the study by fraud detection specialist 41st Parameter and the Merchant Risk Council found that 84 per cent of respondents are concerned that internet retailers will face a ’slight or substantial’ increase in fraudulent activity.”

Share This

By the Infoglide Team

NOTE: We will start posting again after Thanksgiving. Happy Turkey Day!

datanomic: Are we nearly there yet?

“In the 1990s, Customer Relationship Management promised, amongst other things, to provide us with a single view of customers, but the ideal fragmented into a number of different disciplines, largely dictated by technology vendors.  Instead of a single customer view, most organisations have multiple, often inconsistent views of their customers and prospects delivered through an assortment of Sales Force Automation, Analytical CRM and Campaign Management systems each propagating their own database.”

Scamtypes: 5 Types Of Social Networking Scam - #1 The Fake Identity

“Setting up a new profile on the major social networking sites is an incredibly simple thing to do. For criminals this presents a tremendous opportunity as it allows them to affiliate themselves with just about any identity, whether that is a real person or not. For some, a fake identity may just be a means of having fun online, however warped that intention may be. For others, far more sinister motives guide them, from arranging risky meetings to making abusable connections and many other shady reasons.”

Conde Nast Daily Traveler: Bush Officials Claim a Kinder, Gentler Airport Security

“And sometime in January, you will start giving your birth date, home address, and full legal name when you make an airline reservation–all part of a ’secure flight’ initiative that will reduce the number of innocent people who are falsely flagged as potential terrorists because their names resemble those of actual bad guys.”

The Bunker Blog: Macy’s Loss Prevention Agent Arrested For Assisting Shoplifters

“One of the alleged shoplifters was the sister of the loss prevention agent. The 24 year old LP agent had been working for Macy’s since February, and his manager suspected something was going on, so a surveillance was conducted on the LP agent by the manager.”

Evolution of Security: Why?

“More than 23 million passengers were screened at our checkpoints last year during the holiday season, and many of those passengers travel infrequently. Those are the travelers we’d most like to reach. Passenger feedback has shown us that people are more willing to comply with security procedures if they understand the ‘why’ behind the measure.”

Share This

By the Infoglide Team

Long Beach Press-Telegram: 3 more truck firms named in port probe

“In the latest cases, the companies were able to avoid paying overtime, payroll taxes, health insurance and workers’ compensation by labeling their drivers ‘independent contractors’ — a label applied to some 90 percent of truckers in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.”

All Things Data: Master Data Management and the Mid-Market Need

“Basically, the MDM Summit in New York confirmed that the process to implement a Master Data Management initiative is generally the same regardless of whether the organization is a Mid-Market company or a larger enterprise.”

SmartBrief: Homeland Security releases more details on Secure Flight program

“The Department of Homeland Security estimates 99% of passengers will breeze through security next year when federal officials take over the job of screening names provided by the airlines.”

Confessions of a database geek: Updates to the Information Quality Aggregator

“It’s great to see more activity in the data quality arena. Dylan Jones started the Data Quality Pro site, and dropped me a note with some additional blogs to consider. A couple look pretty good!”

Share This

[Post from Infoglide] Identity Resolution at the MDM Summit

“Identity Resolution clearly plays a key role in the MDM space. Many of the conference sessions highlighted how Identity Resolution has become a key ingredient within an overall MDM solution. Without the ability to accurately match and resolve various attributes of an entity or identity, MDM solutions can’t succeed.”

CNN.com: Better air passenger prescreening expected in 2009

“Under the new program, the airlines will be responsible for collecting a passenger’s full name, gender and birth date, as opposed to the current practice of only collecting the passenger’s name. ‘We know that threats to our aviation system persist,’ Chertoff said. ‘Secure Flight will help us better protect the traveling public while creating a more consistent passenger prescreening process, ultimately reducing the number of misidentification issues.’”

B-Eye-Network: Would You Like Fries With That? And Does Cross-Selling Justify Master Data Management?

“The concept of customer data integration into a consolidated master view is appealing because there is the perception that a ‘golden copy’ of customer records enables business benefits that were unachievable in the absence of the ‘360-degree view.’”

Warrington Guardian: Benefit cheat sentenced to 240 hours community service

“Deliberately withholding information that affects your claim is stealing. We have introduced new methods of data matching – and the obvious message to benefit cheats is you will be caught.”

Jill Dyche Blog: Lessons from the SourceMedia MDM Summit

“This only proves my point that MDM’s success is often directly tied to a company’s specific definition of what it should be. Companies should know the problem(s) they’re solving before they acquire MDM.”

CarInsurance.com: Allstate Sues Companies, Alleging Claims Fraud

“Allstate Insurance has sued 13 Florida companies, including auto body shops, tow truck operators, chiropractic clinics and their owners and some policyholders, alleging the group staged at least 17 auto accidents and filed fraudulent claims.”

Evolution of Security: TSA’s Take on the Atlantic Article

“Watch-lists and identity checks are important and effective security measures. We identify dozens of terrorist-related individuals a week and stop No-Flys regularly with our watch-list process.”

Share This

[Post from Infoglide] See You at the MDM Summit?

“Big Master Data Management (MDM) issues are swirling around these days, not the least of which is the role of identity resolution. We’ve posted multiple times about MDM, customer data integration (CDI), data quality (DQ), and related topics. People sometimes are unsure about the relationship between identity resolution and these areas. Most of the time, they are complementary. Identity resolution can play a critical and unique role in each case.”

TDWI: Master Data Management is Inevitable… So Get Ready

“Eventually master data management will extend beyond customer and product data into broad enterprise use. As this trend wends its way, the challenge for data professionals is to develop a strategy that addresses both isolated pockets of MDM today (for customer and product data) and broader enterprise use tomorrow (as MDM is applied to employee, patient, claim, supplier, and other business entities).”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: James Taylor: First Steps To and Beyond Operational Business Intelligence

“This article outlines some steps organizations can take as they move from ‘traditional’ business intelligence (BI) toward operational business intelligence and enterprise decision management.”

The Bunker Blog: Economic Pressures Affect Retailers In Many Ways

“As retailers, under pressure to sell more, relax their security measures on high ticket (high risk) product, the pressure will be on loss prevention professionals to double, even triple, their efforts to protect this merchandise, and therefore the company’s profits.”

Hub Solution Designs: Experts and Analysts Panel Discussion at MDM Summit

“I’m going to be attending the upcoming MDM Summit in New York on Sunday, 10/19/08 through Tuesday, 10/21/08.I’ll be on an ‘Experts and Analysts Panel’, moderated by Jim Ericson, Editorial Director of DM Review, along with Jill Dyché, Partner & Co-Founder of Baseline Consulting and Aaron Zornes, Chief Research Officer of The MDM Institute.”

Share This

By Ram Anantha, Infoglide Director of Product Management

Big Master Data Management (MDM) issues are swirling around these days, not the least of which is the role of identity resolution. We’ve posted multiple times about MDM, customer data integration (CDI), data quality (DQ), and related topics. People sometimes are unsure about the relationship between identity resolution and these areas. Most of the time, they are complementary. Identity resolution can play a critical and unique role in each case.

Given that background, we’re looking forward to attending the MDM Summit Fall 2008 that starts October 19 in the Big Apple and is put together by Aaron Zornes of the MDM Institute. We suggest that you join us in checking out presentations, panels, and demos from forward-thinking companies like DataDelta, DataFlux, and NominoData. Also, look for events involving thought leaders like Aaron, Jill Dyché of Baseline Consulting, David Loshin of Knowledge Integrity, and Dan Power of Hub Solution Designs.

As a reader of this blog, you especially don’t want to miss the expert panel on “Trends in Identity Resolution for MDM” with Ed Allburn of DataDelta and Al Macdonald of NominoData. It’s Tuesday, October 21 at 1:45pm.

Hope to see you there!

Share This