Identity Resolution Daily

By the Infoglide Software Team

Cliffview Pilot: Fighting crime with modern tools amid budget cuts

“Professional analysts and law enforcement officers from more than 15 different agencies including the FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshall’s, Homeland Security, and state and county partners work from one large room to put out intelligence products in a truly collaborative environment that defines New Jersey’s fusion center. Products include crime mapping with predictive analysis to help local departments know when and where crimes are likely to occur in the future.”

Thomasville Times-Enterprise: Pharmacist fraud

“Morgan’s prison sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release. Morgan was ordered to pay restitution of $2,804,462. Morgan, 64, was convicted in October 2008, of 69 counts of health care fraud, following a two-week jury trial in Albany. Michael J. Moore, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, said the indictment charged that for a period of several years ending in August 2007, Morgan, a registered pharmacist and the owner of Thrift Center Pharmacy in Camilla, executed a scheme to defraud the Georgia Medicaid program, which is jointly funded with state and federal funds.

FATF: Money Laundering Using Trusts and Company Service Providers [PDF]

“TCSPs are often involved in some way in the establishment and administration of most legal persons and arrangements; and accordingly in many jurisdictions they play a key role as the gatekeepers for the financial sector. This report provides a number of case studies which demonstrate that TCSPs have often been used, wittingly or unwittingly, in the conduct of money laundering activities.”

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[Post from Infoglide] International Privacy Compliance

“International companies, particularly those in the financial services markets, have long struggled to comply with the varying data privacy laws of the countries in which they operate.  Simple data analysis practices in one region of the world may or may not be acceptable in another, and the penalties of non-compliance can be harsh to say the least.  This leads to inefficiencies in areas such as AML, Compliance and Fraud Investigation.”

nj.com: Elizabeth doctor is charged with hiring phony physicians to bilk Medicaid

“Despite their alleged lack of medical licenses, authorities say, the trio treated thousands of disabled and low-income patients, helping Masood bilk at least $1.8 million from Medicaid, the federally funded health care program for the poor. ‘Unsuspecting patients were placed at risk through deceit and substandard medical care, while taxpayers were being defrauded of millions of dollars,’ said Michael B. Ward, head of the FBI’s Newark office.”

FierceGovernmentIT: More DHS components to receive Watchlist Service data from FBI

“The specific initial recipients of the new automated service were identified as the TSA’s Office of Transportation Threat Assessment and Credentialing; the TSA Secure Flight Program; CBP’s Passenger Systems Program Office for inclusion in the Traveler Enforcement Compliance System; and US-VISIT for inclusion into the DHS Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).”

East Valley Tribune: Authorities: Valleywide crime database nears reality

“‘There are so many databases out there, officers want to be able to get into one portal for information,” Romley said. “Technology capabilities have improved immensely over the years, the real future is in databases when it comes to helping solve crimes quicker. Everyone knows the value of having an intelligence sharing system. the meeting was a baby step, but a monumental step forward.’ One example Romley cited was the East Valley Gang and Criminal Fusion Center that consists of law enforcement agencies throughout the East Valley such as the Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert and Scottsdale police departments sharing information through having all of their police reports in a database for investigative purposes.”

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By Douglas Wood, Infoglide Senior Vice President

International companies, particularly those in the financial services markets, have long struggled to comply with the varying data privacy laws of the countries in which they operate.  Simple data analysis practices in one region of the world may or may not be acceptable in another, and the penalties of non-compliance can be harsh to say the least.  This leads to inefficiencies in areas such as AML, Compliance and Fraud Investigation.

For most companies, the data to identify and catch fraudsters already exists within the organization; however, because data is distributed across various data silos in different countries, resolving identities and non-obvious relationships requires rapidly accessing multiple data sources with different structures and access methods.

Consider then the requirement to comply with data privacy laws, which make it essential that the analyst returns only the calculated probability of a match in a foreign database, instead of the actual data associated with that match.  Businesses have spent massive amounts of money trying to tip-toe through the minefield of privacy laws and acceptable practices.  Determining “who’s who” and “who’s working with whom” has proven difficult where data privacy laws prohibit individual analysts from ‘seeing’ the results of a search into a database in another country.

Infoglide’s Identity Resolution Engine is uniquely capable of solving these requirements by searching into disparate data – irrespective of where it resides – and returning only the percentage likelihood that a match or relationship was found.  The software then returns contact information of the appropriate data steward, if desired.

Taking the weight of data privacy concerns off analysts increases productivity and helps them focus on the cases that truly matter to your organization.  For more information, contact sales@infoglide.com.

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[Post from Infoglide] The Not So Great Fortune 500 Enterprise

“Of the various types of crime involving fraud, individual cases of people scamming workers’ compensation garner the most publicity. The stories typically read like this: ‘Joe Blow was drawing workers’ comp while working as a personal trainer, and after he was caught on video, he had to pay back $9000 and received a five-year suspended jail sentence.’ While the human interest aspect of these stories, especially those including video of an injured worker involved in heavy physical activity, capture the most public attention, more organized activities impact the U.S. economy much more negatively.”

Cato Unbound: The Sky Isn’t Falling

“But a careful observer can detect the outlines of other intelligence successes based on surveillance in recent events. When David Headley was arrested for allegedly seeking to commit terrorist acts in Denmark, news reports suggested that one of the key factors in his identification was his pattern of travel to the Middle East and his efforts to conceal those trips from the government. Review of his travel both provided the trigger to ask questions and the factual cross-check on the veracity of his answers. Likewise, when Najibullah al-Zasi was arrested, one factor that was publicly disclosed as a ground for suspicion was surveillance of his travel to Pakistan.”

CIO: Healthcare Data Quality: Providing Better Patient Care

“Three things immediately jump to mind. The first is something very basic, but important: being able to identify a patient. Think of how many different ways might a patient’s name appear in a physician’s database. From misspellings to inconsistent middle name initial usage, multiple combinations of a name can lead to confusion. If healthcare providers don’t know who their patients are, how can they provide them with quality service?”

GovMonitor: Washington Cracks Down On Workers Compensation Fraud

“‘For every dollar Labor and Industries spends to combat fraud, we’ve seen an eight dollar return,’ Gregoire said. ‘By preventing and punishing fraud, we protect workers and honest businesses from unfair competition. Fraud in the workers’ compensation system hurts our economy – honest businesses are undercut by those that don’t fairly participate in the system and workers pay more than they should when others claim more benefits than they deserve.’”

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By the Infoglide Team

The Post and Courier: Fighting fraud: Link between bogus insurance claims, recession is murky

“At the national level, the number of potential fraud cases continued to rise throughout the first half of the year. Figures released last week by the Illinois-based National Insurance Crime Bureau show a 14 percent increase in questionable claims of the year in four of the six categories the agency tracks… Nationally, reported incidences of suspected organized insurance fraud cases grew 65 percent to 1,837 cases during the first six months of 2010 compared to the same period in 2008, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.”

Center for Investigative Reporting: Maryland to store license-plate scanner data at intel fusion center

“The initiative makes Maryland among the first nationally to establish a statewide network for data generated from license-plate readers. While the devices have not endured regular scrutiny and occasional opposition the way public surveillance cameras have historically, the technology in many respects is more powerful. Privacy advocates warn that plate recognition enables police to document where drivers go – both guilty car thieves and innocent citizens alike – by registering their GPS locations when each license plate is scanned. Police need reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or will be committed for much of the contact officers have with the public, at least in theory. But laws that restrict data gathering by law enforcement don’t always keep up with the 21st century.”

Fidelity.com: HSBC says subject of U.S. money laundering probe

“American authorities are investigating the U.S. division of global banking group HSBC over its compliance with anti-money laundering procedures, according to a regulatory filing… ‘These examinations and inquiries pertain to, among other matters, our global banknotes business and our foreign correspondent banking business, and our compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act, Anti-Money Laundering and Office of Foreign Assets Control requirements,’ the filing said.”

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[Post from Infoglide] The Talk of the ACFE Conference

“The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) held its annual conference and exhibition in Washington, DC this week.  Through the keynote address and the plethora of wonderful speakers, one message became loud and clear - fraudsters are becoming more and more creative in finding ways to circumvent your policies…”

A Software Insider’s Point of View: Research Report: Rethink Your Next Generation Business Intelligence Strategy

“A confluence of changing business requirements and on-going vendor consolidation leads many organizations to rethink their business intelligence (BI) strategies… Ensure the systems supports multi-channel heterogeneous data sources.  Do not stay dependent on ERP systems for primary sources of data.  Expect a rapidly changing business environment that rewards flexibility.”

Center for Investigative Reporting: Ex-cop says makers of data-mining software must recognize intel rules

“The idea is for police in your area to better share essential information about possible criminal and terrorist threats with their federal counterparts, poor communication being one of the reasons why the terrorist hijackings were allowed to occur in the first place. Civil libertarians have repeatedly expressed concern that the centers are stockpiling too much personal data about Americans who haven’t committed a crime in the hope that some piece of it can be ‘fused’ with another to unravel a terrorist plot. Serrao and his colleagues counter that organizations like the ACLU ‘have no clue’ what’s actually being collected and analyzed at fusion centers.”

Visible IT: Numbers, Names, and User IDs

“Patrick rightly notes that, by definition, how a person spells his name is the correct way to spell it and by definition does not have ‘invalid characters’. It’s perhaps more correct to say that the computer system can’t handle the way a person represents their name. There are extreme cases of course such as TAFKAP and Wolfe+585, where people deliberately try to sabotage Our Modern World with unpronounceable or uncontainable names. But sometimes even the most benign names can cause computer systems fits.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Workers Compensation Budget Impact

“A recent article written by IAIABC Executive Director Greg Krohm does a great job of analyzing the effects that the Patient Protect and Affordable Health Care Act of 2010 (aka Obamacare) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 are expected to have on the cost and administration of workers’ compensation programs. The indirect impact of the budgetary pressure put on state government budgets by the new federal requirements is troubling…”

The New England Journal of Medicine: The ACA’s New Weapons against Health Care Fraud

“Among the most immediate changes will be more rigorous screening procedures for applicants seeking Medicare’s approval to bill the program for services. The law grants the DHHS broad discretion to subject applicants to criminal background checks, fingerprinting, unannounced site visits, and database checks.”

The TSA Blog: Secure Flight Q&A

“TSA collects as little personal information as possible to conduct effective watch list matching. Also, personal data is collected, used, distributed, stored, and disposed of in accordance with stringent guidelines and all applicable privacy laws and regulations.”

Ezine Articles: Tutorial on Workers’ Compensation

“Surprisingly, it’s employer fraud that is the major type of workers’ comp fraud. According to a recent study reported by the National Commission on State Workmen’s Compensation Laws, over 13% of employers studied were operating without legally required workers’ compensation insurance. In addition, others were found to be cheating the system by intentionally misclassifying or underreporting their payroll or by falsely representing employees as independent contractors.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Fusion Centers Highlight Privacy Versus Security Issue

“It’s been quite awhile since we’ve addressed the challenge of balancing security and privacy. As authors of the software used more times every day than all other identity resolution software combined (video: Who Is Infoglide Software?), we are extremely conscious of how critical it is to strike a balance every day that ensures the security and protects the privacy of U.S. citizens.”

PBS: Getting dirty money clean

“‘Wachovia Bank willfully failed to establish an anti-money laundering program,’ said U.S. Attorney Sloman. Without a program to detect money laundering, here’s what happened: From 2003 to 2008, $420 billion flowed through Wachovia Bank from Mexico – including all that drug money – with no effective oversight.”

azcentral.com: Southeast Valley gets overall decrease in crime

“He also said that regional cooperation among agencies has improved greatly, particularly with the East Valley Gang and Information Fusion Center, where authorities sift through crime leads and data to battle crimes across city boundaries. The center allows Valley agencies to quickly share information on crimes and suspects.”

Green Valley News: Healing Health Care: Do efforts to combat fraud work?

“The Department of Health and Human Services, under which Medicare and Medicaid operate, beefed up the Recovery Audit Contractor program. This program, begun in 2005, uses contracted “bounty hunters” to recover improper paid monies. They receive a percentage of recovered dollars as a bounty. Sophisticated computer programs used to identify patterns of errors as well as other high-tech methods should improve the amount recaptured.”

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By Mike Shultz, Infoglide Software CEO

It’s been quite awhile since we’ve addressed the challenge of balancing security and privacy. As authors of the software used more times every day than all other identity resolution software combined (video: Who Is Infoglide Software?), we are extremely conscious of how critical it is to strike a balance every day that ensures the security and protects the privacy of U.S. citizens.

As fusion centers proliferate, the tension between those who protect us from physical harm and those who protect our right to privacy plays out in public meetings. In Austin, for example, every meeting about the new Austin Regional Intelligence Center is well attended by law enforcement agencies who are challenged daily to keep citizens safe and by groups like the ACLU who point out the dangers of invading the privacy of citizens that fusion centers are meant to protect.

Although fusion centers highlight the privacy/security clash in a public way, any use of powerful identity resolution technology to catch people with bad intent must be weighed against the rights to privacy and confidentiality that we all enjoy. In every instance that the technology is applied – detecting money laundering, solving lottery ticket theft, monitoring retail merchandise exchange, uncovering workers’ comp employer cheating, and other uses – care must be taken to apply it judiciously and only in ways needed to achieve narrow objectives while always protecting individual liberties.

I have always believed that the back and forth between all of the stakeholders is healthy for our society and I continue to believe that today.  At Infoglide Software we are proud to be the “Gold Standard” for entity and identity resolution software and we are mindful of the balance that is required in the application of our technology.

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[Post from Infoglide] Trade-Based Money Laundering

“Who’d have thought that iTunes could be used for money laundering? Yet that is exactly what five men in Great Britain were recently jailed for the other day. Using stolen credit card numbers, they bought £750,000 in vouchers, then sold them at cheaper prices over eBay. Methods of money laundering continue to evolve.”

Liliendahl on Data Quality: Big Time ROI in Identity Resolution

“So the question is if authorities may have avoided losing 5 billion taxpayer Euros if some identity resolution including automated fuzzy connection checks and real world checks was implemented. I know that you are so much more enlightened on what could have been done when the scam is discovered, but I actually think that there may be a lot of other billions of Euros (Pounds, Dollars, Rupees) to avoid losing out there by making some decent identity resolution.”

LISTA: The Privacy and Security Challenges of Electronic and Personal Health Records: Is Your Business Prepared?

“In a 2008 study conducted by Kroll Fraud Solutions/HIMSS Analytics to better understand the status of patient data security at hospitals, the hospitals surveyed reported an average level of preparedness to deal with a security breach of 5.88 on a one to seven ascending scale.19  Yet the same study indicated that only 56 percent of these hospitals had notified patients whose information was compromised as a result of a security breach.”

Newsweek: Intel Paper Says Al Qaeda’s Yemeni Affiliate More Determined Than Ever to Attack Inside U.S.

“The ‘official use only’ bulletin, produced by the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a partnership of federal, state, and local agencies originally set up to deal with drug trafficking, is entitled ‘Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula’s Online Rhetoric Signals Shift in Intentions.’”

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