Identity Resolution Daily

smart (enough) systems: How to address decision making challenges - ownership

“You want to manage the decision so that the value of the customer, their retention risk and more is considered and so that the person who REALLY made the decision was the person who works on how to handle the best customers. Only taking control of decisions, being explicit about how they are made and using automation to deliver the decision in every channel, every time is really going to work.”

Evolution of Security: ID Update and Word on the Blog

“Now that the new ID requirement is almost one week old, we wanted to provide additional stats.”

Hi-Tech-Blog: Economy Down Shoplifting Up

“The rise in retail thefts is also being blamed on the presence of organized crime, which account for up to $30 billion in losses every year, according to the FBI. These rings of professional thieves can easily move stolen items through the Internet, where consumers go to look for deals.”

Andy on Enterprise Software: MDM Fashions

“There are some good points in the DM Review article on MDM by William McKnight. In particular, I like that he clearly highlights some issues that some parts of our industry are still in denial over:”

Homeland Security Watch: Technology Task Force Presents 7 Recommendations to Chertoff

“Before he left, Chertoff charged the HSAC membership with one more task: ‘What are the ten tasks for the next Administration to take up and accomplish over its first year or two?’ It seemed odd to charge this group with something so trite. However, he explained, rightly, that it is important that efforts be made to preserve the institutional knowledge of the Department into and through its first ever Presidential transition. I’d like to know what you think should make the top ten list. Comment below.”

Hub Solution Designs: Building a Data Governance Organization

“I’m often asked how many data stewards a company needs. A rule of thumb I’ve used for quite a while is ‘one data steward per $1 billion in annual revenue’, but of course that can’t be a hard and fast rule. Depending on the company, the degree of automation, what data quality tools are available, and the major processes around the enterprise, that number is going to vary.”

The First Post: More snooping please, we love it

“Freeborn Englishmen like nothing more than the state’s jackboot on their windpipes, says David Cox”

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[Post from Infoglide] Identity Resolution Daily - One Year Later . . . or Thereabouts

“Well, here we are feeling like the stereotypical bad husband. We can’t believe we missed our first year anniversary. I guess a couple dozen long stemmed roses are in order.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network: Master Data Management Readiness

“The selection and purchase of a core master data management system should be the culmination of a series of preparatory steps that are described in this article.”

newsday.com: NYPD arrests 15 suspected in car insurance fraud

“The 13 people were arrested Tuesday on insurance fraud and grand larceny charges stemming from at least five wrecks. Two suspects are still at large. Police say the ring targeted car insurance companies, taking advantage of a state law that entitles people involved in a crash to $50,000 worth of medical benefits. . . . Police are investigating whether the clinics were in on the scam.”

DataFlux Community of Experts: CIO Forum

“This time, I am on my way to be a panel member at a local CIO Forum. . . . Data integration, and data quality issues are going to be on the top of the list for this discussion.”

supermarket.co.za: ‘E-Fencing’ Is Growing Wave In Organized Crime

“These losses are clearly affecting retailers’ bottom lines. According to the survey, organized crime accounts for approximately $30 billion in retail losses every year. As a result, retailers are also spending more to ward off these detrimental incidents. In fact, the average retailer spends approximately $230,000 per year on labor costs, the study said. This price tag can hit $1 million a year at larger chains that are constant organized retail crime (ORC) targets.”

Data Governance and Data Quality Insider: Get Smart about Your Data Quality Projects

“With all due respect to Agent Maxwell Smart, there is a mini battle between good and evil, CONTROL and KAOS, happening in many busy, fast-growing corporations. It is, of course, with information quality. Faster growing companies are more vulnerable to chaos because by opening up new national and international divisions, expanding through acquisition, manufacturing offshore, and doing all the other things that an aggressive company does, it leads to more misalignment and more chaotic data. While a company may have a strong desire to ‘own the world’ or at least their market, they may wind up owning chaos and disorder instead - in the form of disparate data.”

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Hi-Tech-Blog: “Shoplifting Ring Pocketed Millions”

“A joint task force of federal agents and San Jose police officers arrested 17 alleged members of organized crime families for their suspected involvement in a shoplifting ring. Authorities say that the Le and Vo crime families employed hundreds of shoplifters to steal from retail stores.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: David Loshin: Microsoft to Purchase Zoomix?

“Just heard through the rumor mill that Microsoft is ‘thinking about acquiring Zoomix.’“

CNBC: Retail Theft Up But Is Bad Economy The Cause?

“A record number of retailers–85%–say that they’ve been victims of organized retail crime in the past 12 months. That’s up 6% since 2007. . . . According to the NRF, nearly two-thirds (63%) of retailers experienced an increase in online resale of stolen items or ‘e-fencing’ during the past 12 months. Maybe this illegal online market is booming because consumers are now comfortable with buying from eBay or unknown merchants if the price is right.”

PogoWasRight.org: Your Papers Please: TSA outlaws ID-less flight

“In a major change of policy, the Transportation Security Administration has announced that passengers refusing to show ID will no longer be able to fly.”

Hub Solution Designs: Importance of Integration to MDM

“While integration doesn’t always have to be real-time, if you find yourself thinking solely in a batch-oriented mode, take a step back and ask yourself, ‘what will we be giving up by not providing for any real-time capabilities?’”

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Note: There will be no post on Monday as we will be observing Memorial Day. Enjoy your holiday weekend, and we hope to ’see’ you back here on Wednesday.

[Post from Infoglide] Partners in Crime Fighting

“eBay and other online auction services have taken some heat from retailers and Congress because organized retail crime rings and other shoplifters are using these types of services for e-fencing. It’s a bit of a dilemma for these sites because if they do the right thing, and reduce e-fencing on their sites, they lose revenue, which is certainly something no business, public or private, wants to do.”

The 451 Group (requires free registration): An MDM acquisition: the next deal for Informatica?

“Through a combination of homegrown and acquired software, Informatica now has all the requisite pieces for a complete MDM offering – data access, data analysis and profiling, data correction, cleansing, data transformation and now identity management – but not an actual MDM platform itself. It therefore seems logical to us that once the company has digested Identity, a deal scheduled to close in May, it will start eyeing an MDM target to provide a complete offering.”

WKYC.com: Shoplifting: A $40 billion enterprise

“A National Retail Federation study indicates 75 percent of businesses have found their shoplifted items for sale on the internet. . . . Bokovitz said increased incidents of shoplifting are directly related to the state legislature’s decision to drop progressive sentencing on theft related crimes. The penalties for shoplifting no longer increase with the number of times you commit the crime. So who really pays the price? ‘Me and you, the consumer, everybody who plays by the rules because our costs just went up,’ Bokovitz said.”

Netrics HD: The Monk Factor

“It’s great to see that simply collecting customer data is no longer good enough - the data needs to be usable to benefit the business. ‘Refining customer data quality and access to customer data have emerged as two of the top marketing investment priorities of b-to-b CMOs this year. Half of b-to-b marketers plan to put more resources against creating marketing databases, cleaning up customer data, improving sales force automation and CRM integration, according to Forrester Research in its “B2B CMO Investment Priorities for 2008” report.’”

PogoWasRight.org: DHS to monitor access to IT systems

“Government employees, contractors and consultants with access to Homeland Security Department computer systems are among those whose names and personal information will be kept in a newly created database, according to a notice posted in the Federal Register.”

DMReview: Master Data Management and Service-Oriented Architecture

“One of the many ‘hidden benefits’ of a successful master data management (MDM) strategy is the contribution it can make to your enterprise’s move toward a service-oriented architecture (SOA).”

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eBay and other online auction services have taken some heat from retailers and Congress because organized retail crime rings and other shoplifters are using these types of services for e-fencing. It’s a bit of a dilemma for these sites because if they do the right thing, and reduce e-fencing on their sites, they lose revenue, which is certainly something no business, public or private, wants to do.

But eBay seems to be doing the right thing and has dedicated resources to addressing this problem. They have established the Global Law Enforcement Organization (GLEO) to “promote the safe use of their platforms and to collaborate with local, federal and international law enforcement to:

• Help keep the community safe
• Enforce policies
• Prosecute fraudsters”

They also have a partnership with LeadsOnline that allows law enforcement to locate sellers of possible stolen goods that are being listed on their site.

This is key because even when retailers have a really strong case against a seller, it takes a lot of time to find the seller and work with law enforcement to prosecute them. With eBay’s partnerships with LeadsOnline and law enforcement, retailers can more quickly and easily recover stolen goods and catch the bad guys.

But are we putting the cart before the horse? This takes care of the catching and retrieving part but how do the retailers find the stolen merchandise and the crooks? Well, they can do this either manually or they can automate the process. With the first option, retailers assign investigators to manually monitor online auction sites, checking goods for sale against lists of merchandise that have been stolen from their stores. Obviously this is time and resource consuming.

Luckily there’s an easier way. Infoglide Software’s Online Auction Monitoring solution automatically monitors online auction sites for merchandise that is a strong possible match for stolen goods. Online Auction Monitoring can also tap into other key sources of data such as human resources, vendors, reward programs, and incidents databases, so not only can retailers be alerted of a nefarious seller, but they can also know that the seller is an employee or customer of their store.

In a recent study with a regional grocer, Infoglide Software monitored 17 ‘high-risk items’ on a popular auction site for just five days. At the end of the monitoring period, more than 30 unique sellers were identified as having a history of selling many high-risk items over the previous 90 days.

So though e-fencing continues to be significant source of lost revenue for retailers, there are now tools and resources available to address this problem. Retailers now have their own partners in crime fighting.

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[Post from Infoglide] More Than “Nice”: Identity Resolution is Core to MDM

“Writing about Informatica’s acquisition of Identity Systems, industry expert Jill Dyche offers a great perspective on MDM. This author of a number of very useful books on MDM, CRM, and data warehousing shared in a recent post that she sees the acquisition by Informatica as a good one for the company and the industry.”

DataFlux Community of Experts: Privacy and Data Governance

“At the recent data governance executive briefings that I participated in with Scott Gidley from DataFlux, one of the examples that came up in conversation regarding data governance was that of data privacy.”

WFAA.com: Organized retail theft rings work stores

“Retailers say organized packs of shoplifters are sweeping shelves clean, then reselling stolen goods on eBay or at flea markets. ‘We have not seen regular shoplifting rise over the last several weeks or months because of inflation,’ said Kroger spokesman Garry Huddleston. ‘What we have seen increase is organized retail crime.’”

Today’s THV: MLK Commissioners Defend Director Linked To Fraud Ring

“The state’s insurance commissioner said last week that the state could pursue charges against DuShun Scarbrough, who began working for the commission in March. Scarbrough has not been charged with a crime, but court papers filed by the state say he received more than $19,000 in false insurance claims for accidents tied to the ring.”

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PogoWasRight.org: Huge Databases Offer a Research Gold Mine — and Privacy Worries

“Last month several news organizations reported on the emergence of ‘fusion centers’ — vast data clearinghouses, operated by state law-enforcement agencies, that can instantly call up key personal information on anyone: telephone numbers, insurance records, family ties, and much more.”

Supermarket News: Retailers Seek Solutions for Growing Organized Thefts

“’During the past eight to 10 years [organized retail crime] has gone from a minor problem to a major problem, and it all has to do with the Internet,’ said Griffin. Organized shoplifters were once forced to fence stolen goods through local pawn shops and flea markets, but now, online auction sites give them access to a national market where they can sell large quantities of merchandise anonymously.”

Content Matters: i2 Acquired for $185 million by Silver Lake

“Private equity firm Silver Lake Sumeru has acquired i2 Technologies for $185 million from ChoicePoint. . . It’s been a few years since I’ve looked closely at i2, but what always surprised me was that there seemed to be a lot more hype than substance in the product. The product was positioned as an analysis tool, suggesting that it would help uncover various social networks and relationships in data, but when I frequently met with i2 users, I found that it was used more as a presentation tool.”

PogoWasRight.org: Solove: Understanding Privacy

“Privacy is one of the most important concepts of our time, yet it is also one of the most elusive. As rapidly changing technology makes information more and more available, scholars, activists, and policymakers have struggled to define privacy, with many conceding that the task is virtually impossible.”

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[Post from Infoglide Software] Are Name Matching and Entity Resolution Equivalent? No.

“First of all, I take issue with the comment that entity resolution is ‘a fancy name for name matching.’ Name matching is necessary but not sufficient for entity resolution, i.e. entity resolution (aka identity resolution) includes name matching analytics plus quite a bit more.”

Enterprise Systems: Informatica Taps Identity Systems for Identity Resolution

“Chong argues that the addition of identity resolution technology to its core data quality capability lets Informatica validate data wherever it resides. ‘We think that with the way the global information economy is evolving, we’ve talked with several CIOs who feel that the enterprise boundary that exists around the data, it doesn’t exist anymore,’ he indicates.”

Data Governance and Data Quality Insider: The Solution Maturity Cycle

“I saw the news about Informatica’s acquisition of Identity Systems, and it got me thinking. I recognize a familiar pattern that all too often occurs in the enterprise software business. I’m going to call it the Solution Maturity Cycle. It goes something like this:”

LPinformation: Uniting Against OCR

“Based on the estimates of several retailers, approximately 18 percent of all stolen goods (around $5.4 billion) are being sold via the Internet. More strikingly, retailers estimate that approximately 25 to 30 percent of goods being sold on web auction sites were stolen or fraudulently obtained, according to NRF’s preliminary survey findings.”

BloggingStocks: Informatica buys a new identity

“So far, Identity has more than 500 customers. But, with the extra distribution – and marketing possibilities – of Informatica, footprint should expand quickly, especially with the imperatives for security, compliance and homeland security. What’s more, the deal should provide more heft against a major competitor, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM).”

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DataFlux Community of Experts: Could Master Data Have A Much Wider Remit?

“There seems to be a lot of debate around about data governance and MDM, return on investment on MDM etc. going on at present. . . . So I thought I would look at what MDM could potentially do for an enterprise and see if it implementing MDM might have wider implications. I was amazed at how long my list of what MDM could potentially integrate with started to get.”

Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds: eBay/Craigslist praised by Congressman for efforts to curb sales of stolen military equipment on their sites (?)

“Given the organized effort on a lot of auction sites to fence stolen merchandise via some pretty sophisticated methods, it’s not surprising that the GAO found military equipment for sale on the sites. Many have speculated that these sites are used as a means of fencing the proceeds of what is known as organized retail crime. . . . Anne Broache (CNet) writes: By calling Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and eBay government relations chief Tod Cohen to Washington for the hearing, the subcommittee seemed to be preparing to place those executives in the hot seat. But the tone of that questioning was actually quite cordial. At the end of the panel, Tierney even praised the companies for ‘trying very hard’ to keep sensitive military goods off their sites and acknowledged the rules of the road aren’t the most clear.”

philly.com: Former W.Pa. chiropractor sentenced in insurance fraud

“Prosecutors say Detelich submitted fraudulent claims to Highmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield for services not rendered. He then split the payments from those claims with some patients.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: Jill Dyche: Reminder: Fabulous MDM Webcast on Tuesday

“In which Jill reminds her peeps about the webcast she’s doing with TDWI’s Wayne Eckerson, where they’ll recall Lessons Learned from the MDM Insight conference.”

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silive.com: Shoplifters turn to the Internet for easy cash

“LaRocca, the National Retail Federation official, said the amount of cash stores recover from civil actions is minimal compared to the costs to protect their goods. So, it’s no surprise merchants want to get back whatever they believe they are entitled to. ‘Retailers should have a right to collect the damages from people stealing from their stores,’ he said. ‘As a consumer, you and I pay for these losses in prices charged in retail stores.’”

The Monitor: Allstate alleges fraud at Valley chiropractic clinics

“One of the nation’s top insurers has sued a group of Rio Grande Valley chiropractic clinics and lawyers over their alleged involvement in a multimillion-dollar fraud ring. . . . ‘Individuals who conduct fraud generally do so because they think that they are digging into the deep pockets of a big insurance company,’ Mellander said. ‘But the reality is they’re not. They’re stealing from you and me.’”

Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds: OCCRP reports on Eastern European/Eurasian organized crime

“Eastern European/Eurasian organized groups seem to have their hands in a wide variety of organized criminal activity. They are often mentioned when referring to anything from auction fraud to payment (credit/debit) card skimming and computer crimes.”

Homeland Security Watch: REAL ID Showdown Averted?

“DHS granted an extension on Friday to the state of Montana so that it can comply with the REAL ID Act. The only thing is that Montana never asked for an extension. Montana governor Brian Schweitzer made news over his intention to defy the law passed by Congress in 2005. Schweitzer is leading a charge (joined by Maine, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma) to oppose the REAL ID Act and any efforts by DHS to impose penalties for non-compliance.”

RetailWire: Theft Hits Retail in the Bottom Line

“The risk of retail theft has only grown with the introduction of higher priced items in categories such as smoking cessation, OTC analgesics and allergy, electronics, razors, cosmetics and perfumes. The percentage product loss between manufacture and point of sale, or shrinkage, is about two percent of sales and higher. While that may sound low, it means the loss of $31 billion due to theft. What can retailers and manufacturers do to address retail theft?”

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