“We have a new Congress and a new House majority leader as of this week’s swearing in ceremony. The current House majority party (R) plans to pass a bill to repeal the ‘Obamacare’ bill passed during the last session by the former House majority party (D). Both parties make ‘fact based’ arguments about why killing or keeping the bill will reduce the deficit, yet both can’t be right. This isn’t a political blog, and I’m not going to take a side on this issue. What struck me is how often we use ‘facts’ to bolster our argument, with ‘facts’ defined as any real data that can be massaged or misinterpreted to suggest that our desired outcome appears to be the best one.”
“When she arrived at the screening area, her husband’s incorrect name had already been checked against a list of potential security threats and had passed. Once passengers receive their boarding passes, the Secure Flight process is already complete, according to the TSA.”
“Identity matching requires matching practitioners to decide which collection of fields best allows the correct matching of one record with another. The choice can be made from fields such as name, date of birth, address details, sex / gender, and even unique identifier values (when they exist). The use of sex / gender in that process might be seen in a slightly different light.”
“Under the bill, the commission would establish procedures for the payment of winning tickets holders, which may include crediting amounts won to a player’s account or direct deposit into a player’s account at a financial institution… The commission would also be directed to ensure that the program includes security measures to protect against fraud, prevent wagering by underage persons and protect the personal and financial information of players.”
“Strategic decisions about cloud computing should both draw upon and inform the EA. An organization must have a mature and well formed understanding of its architecture components (e.g., business processes, services, applications and data) to make meaningful decisions related to cloud computing, such as whether a move to the cloud is advantageous, what services most lend themselves to a cloud deployment, and what cloud deployment model (e.g., private, public) makes the most sense. There are three key roles for EA in facilitating cloud computing strategy and planning…”
“‘Medicaid cheaters rob taxpayers, hurt needy patients and push medical costs higher for all of us,’ Cooper said in a statement. ‘We’re stopping the waste and abuse and making violators pay.’ During the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Medicaid Investigations Unit of the state Attorney General’s Office won 22 criminal convictions and negotiated 18 civil settlements worth $53.5 million.”
“Under Secure Flight, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) prescreens passenger name, date of birth and gender against terrorist watchlists before passengers receive their boarding passes. In addition to facilitating secure travel for all passengers, the program helps prevent the misidentification of passengers who have names similar to individuals on government watchlists. Prior to Secure Flight, airlines held responsibility for checking passengers against watchlists.”
“The era of Big Data has only just begun. In the latest edition of Database Trends & Applications, I provided a series of predictions about the year ahead, with an emphasis on data management. Here are 10 of them…”
“The segment of the cloud Salesforce leads, SaaS (software as a service), has grown from a tiny sliver of the enterprise software market just a few years ago to 10 percent in 2009, according to Gartner, which predicts that slice will expand to 16 percent by 2014. Even more dramatic is the firm’s projection that 85 percent of all new software will be delivered as a service by 2010.”
“In 2005 the United Kingdom embarked on the largest investment ($18 billion) in health information technology in the world. Yet despite expectations that the system would increase efficiency and reduce medical errors, their efforts neither improved health nor saved money — in fact in some cases, they may have led to patient harm. Britain’s government-run medical system is obviously different from our complex public-private insurance system.”
“‘This is where Secure Flight, the government-run program that is now vetting passengers before they receive their boarding passes, comes in. It replaces a more ad hoc system run by the carriers. ‘Prior to Secure Flight, the airlines themselves were responsible for matching all of their passengers against the watch lists, so each airline had their own system for doing that,’ said Greg Soule, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. ‘Secure Flight takes the passenger watch list matching process away from the airlines and puts it all in one program under TSA, so it is a more consistent process across the board.’”
“Immediately after the Christmas bomber incident in 2009, we highlighted the positive role that broader deployment of (id)entity resolution software could play in preventing terrorist actions. That thought was seconded this week in a piece published by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) entitled ‘Better data analysis for a safer world’…”
“According to the same official statement, Louisiana doled out more than $850 million in taxpayer funds to drug companies to pay for drugs between 1991 and 2009. But a significant portion of this amount was most likely fraudulent because of the billing scheme drug companies utilize to get reimbursed. The way it works is drug companies report what are called the Average Wholesale Prices (AWPs) for drugs, and are subsequently reimbursed by state Medicaid programs for these amounts. But the lawsuit alleges that drug companies were marking up these costs as high as 6000 percent above actual costs.”
“Last month a father and son who worked at Burlington store were charged, along with another family member, with stealing a $12.5-million Super 7 jackpot in 2003. The case has not yet come to trial. Mr. Vikoren said that for membership cards to ensure consumer protection, people need to keep their card safe.”
“But the whole thing made me think about whether the TSA could institute a ‘trusted traveler’ program that allows vetted frequent flyers easier access through security. It’s an idea supported by the U.S. Travel Association. The organization, which promotes the interests of the travel industry, has called upon the government to consider such a measure, especially because the Department of Homeland Security is already working with airlines and online reservation systems on Secure Flight, where manifests of domestic and inbound passengers are checked against government watch lists.”
Immediately after the Christmas bomber incident in 2009, we highlighted the positive role that broader deployment of (id)entity resolution software could play in preventing terrorist actions. That thought was seconded this week in a piece published by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) entitled “Better data analysis for a safer world”:
The technology to connect the dots from disparate data sources already exists, and has done for quite some time. It’s called “entity resolution,” and corporations have been using it for years to compile and ensure accuracy in consumer data. Entity resolution can help avoid many of the mistakes that led to the attempted Christmas bombing: it can overcome spelling errors in databases, alert the right people to a threat in real time, and correlate literally billions of records on an ongoing basis.
… some technologies rely on strategies that actually destroy the forensic integrity of the data. Not all identity resolution technologies are the same. Ours can be configured using a number of strategies to fit particular customer performance requirements, sensitivity to false positives or false negatives, and Similarity Search behaviors, including specialized name algorithms that catch misspellings, nicknames, and ordering variations.
The CBC article suggests how expanding the current uses of entity resolution software could bring added benefits:
If the agencies that held these disparate pieces of information were connected and running entity resolution software, red flags would be raised automatically, and those warnings quickly transmitted to the people who make decisions. The same level of intelligent technology and data analysis is important in business, where entity resolution originated.
That last statement supports our January post where we mentioned other uses for the technology:
Although the consequences are grimmer in homeland security situations, the challenges are the same for financial, healthcare, gaming, state and local government, and marketing applications.
The CBC article delineates how businesses benefit from entity resolution:
Knowing who your customers are, where they live, and what they are interested in gives your business a serious advantage - but for large organizations, that requires processing massive amounts of information. The potential for inaccuracies, duplication, and mistaken identity means that companies may be led into poor decisions by misrepresentative data. Entity resolution software was developed to mitigate these risks, and automatically format and clean up the available information.
CEO Mike Shultz has pointed out that our specific technology is “used more times every day for terrorist matching” than any other entity resolution software. Thankfully, the worlds of both business and government seem to be getting the message about the critical importance of this technology.
“The technology to connect the dots from disparate data sources already exists, and has done for quite some time. It’s called “entity resolution,” and corporations have been using it for years to compile and ensure accuracy in consumer data. Entity resolution can help avoid many of the mistakes that led to the attempted Christmas bombing: it can overcome spelling errors in databases, alert the right people to a threat in real time, and correlate literally billions of records on an ongoing basis.”
“So-called false positives, such as when Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts was barred from a flight in 2004 because his name matched an alias on a watch list, are eliminated under the new program, the agency has said. The computer system the government uses is more sophisticated than the one employed by airlines, and more detailed information is now collected from travelers, the security agency has said.”
“On November 1, the Secure Flight program achieved a key goal as described on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) web site: Secure Flight, the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) behind-the-scenes watch list matching program, fulfills a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission by assuming responsibility of watch list matching from individual airlines. By establishing a consistent watch list matching system, Secure Flight enhances aviation security and more effectively facilitates air travel for passengers.”
“With a simple text message system you can bring the power of a supercomputer to the cheapest and simplest mobile phones via cloud computing. For many important applications there is no need to place supercomputing power in the device itself. Simple cell phones can act as smart phones today, thanks to the cloud. That’s an amazing technological advance.”
“The hospital, according to Field, allegedly paid a doctor $12,000 a month in Medicare money to serve as a medical director and to get patients admitted into a nonexistent program for women with post-traumatic stress disorder. Field also alleged the hospital billed Medicare for services to psychiatric patients without the doctor certification statements required by the government. ‘In essence it appeared that what the hospital was doing was obtaining reimbursement from the federal government for medically unnecessary psychiatric services,’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Palombo said.”
“‘He has taken no responsibility for his conduct,” Kamiabipour said. ‘When he gets out, he’ll do it again.’ Petronella’s attorney, Tom Dunn, said the sentence was fair, though he would have liked to see his client get less time. Dunn also commended the judge for his “thoughtful and sound” decision on restitution. State officials and prosecutors say the couple operated a $38 million workers’ compensation insurance-fraud scheme.”
Secure Flight, the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) behind-the-scenes watch list matching program, fulfills a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission by assuming responsibility of watch list matching from individual airlines. By establishing a consistent watch list matching system, Secure Flight enhances aviation security and more effectively facilitates air travel for passengers.
It’s an important achievement for the Secure Flight team. As part of that team, we are aware of how seriously all involved take their responsibility to keep people with ill intent off airplanes that fly into, out of, and over the United States.
With this latest announcement, the responsibility for comparing passenger manifests with the government’s lists of potential bad actors shifted from the individual airlines to TSA. During the past year, each airline transitioned to a process of requiring standard, minimal information (full name, date of birth, and gender) needed to ensure accuracy and minimize false positive identifications.
As a Secure Flight contractor since 2002, we have a sense of pride and ownership in reaching this milestone. As I noted in a post here 18 months ago, “given the critical nature of the program and with requirements for processing millions of transactions per day, Secure Flight is one of the most demanding and advanced applications of identity resolution and entity analytics technology to date. We feel privileged and grateful for the contributions we’ve had an opportunity to make to this important endeavor.”
“We’re currently in the heat of the election season. No matter how impeccable the record of any candidate that the major parties put forward, minions of the opposing parties go to great lengths to uncover an embarrassing incident that can be exposed (or even an incident that can be twisted to appear embarrassing) in order to influence voters away from voting for that candidate. While the populace is reasonably good at figuring these tricks out, even more disturbing are the stories involving voter fraud.”
“Also, many data quality vendors specialize and provide depth of expertise in a focused part of the data quality market such as postal address verification (e.g., Experian QAS, Melissa DATA), matching or identity resolution [e.g., Infoglide Software, Netrics (acquired by TIBCO Software), and Pervasive Software], and data profiling (e.g., Ab Initio and Business Data Quality).”
“The R.I. State Fusion Center, a state police unit that tracks information on homeland security and crime, assisted in the investigation through the use of facial recognition software that determined that Medrano had been previously issued a Massachusetts identity document in his real name.”
“While TSA’s watch-list matching takes seconds and can be completed up until the time of departure, the agency cautions passengers that a boarding pass will not be issued until the airline submits complete passenger data to Secure Flight. The agency noted that, despite the crackdown, minor variations in the name on the boarding pass and ID, like middle initials, should not present problems at checkpoints.”
“On the one hand, recognition of the power that entity resolution can bring to bear on challenging problems both in the commercial and public realms continues to increase. On the other hand, resistance to change and lack of budget seem to be inhibiting dramatic increases in productivity and effectiveness that could be gained by a more rapid uptake of this new technology.”
“Cloud computing, social computing, context-aware computing, and pattern-based strategy are the four big trends that will alter IT in the next few years, according to Peter Sondergaard, SVP of Research for Gartner… Each of these trends is disruptive, he said, but the combination is an ‘unimaginable force’ that will transform not just IT, but business and government.”
“The TSA estimates that only about 1 percent of travelers won’t make it through security because of a discrepancy, Kimball says. Although it’s unlikely you won’t be able to fly because of a mishap, you still might be delayed if your ID and ticket don’t match up. That hold-up will likely be less than five or 10 minutes while screeners verify your ID and boarding pass, Orbitz’s Tornatore estimates.”
Infoglide Software provides entity resolution and analysis solutions for retail, banking, insurance, government, and law enforcement. Without the need for data cleansing or warehousing, Infoglide Software's Identity Resolution Engine™ (IRE) analyzes all of the information relating to individuals and/or entities from multiple sources of data and then applies...
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