Identity Resolution Daily

By the Infoglide Team

Francine Hardaway’s Blog: Are There Economies of Scale in Medicine?

“The efficiencies come when a group of physicians are all responsible for a patient’s continuity of care, and when they share information such as that possible with electronic health records (EHRs).”

Insurance & Financial Advisor: Poizner, industry oppose California downgrading of insurance fraud felonies

“‘Reclassifying 73 crimes including ‘false insurance claims’ is a disservice to the consumers and businesses in the state of California,” the letter said. “In addition, taking the power out of the hands of the public prosecutor to charge someone with a felony crime will have a serious impact on public safety.’”

BAM INTEL: A Growing Trend - Fusion Centers Connect Private and Public Sector Thinking

“The private sector owns about 80% of all critical infrastructure, and a communication disconnect could result catastrophically in a disaster scenario.”

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By Robert Barker, Infoglide Senior VP & Chief Marketing Officer

So the title “Catching Terrorists and Making the World a Safer Place” certainly caught my eye! And the content of the post did not disappoint, as the author Chris Boorman of Informatica did a great job of crystallizing the issue that drove the creation of this blog over two years ago: “So how do we balance the freedom of movement we have come to expect as hard-working citizens with the need to spot terrorists?” His answer is “technology” and of course we agree.

When Identity Resolution Daily first began in the summer of 2007, we pointed out the constant tension between freedom and privacy versus the need for security:

In the US, the debate between personal privacy (and perhaps liberties in general) versus security is a long-standing one with roots in the very founding of the nation itself. Folks interested in obtaining data often wonder how much people are willing to give up in the name of greater security or convenience. On the other hand, those more focused on privacy worry about how data is obtained, what it’s used for and where it ends up.

Infoglide CEO Mike Shultz also discussed the responsibility that comes with providing technology that deals with identity:

It was important to all of us here that we didn’t create some sort of Big-Brother-enabling technology. As a result, we designed software that can resolve identities across multiple sources while protecting data privacy and security.

The point he made about the design of the software being critical is vital, and The Center for Digital Government’s white paper entitled “Resolving Identity: The Importance of Who’s Who and the Search for the Perfect Engine” delves into what technology can do to answer questions like “who’s who” and “who’s related to whom.”

In a more recent post, we talked about the components needed for an effective identity resolution solution. It’s not enough to have great similarity matching algorithms, and it’s not even enough to be able to find hidden connections in real time across millions of rows of data, although both those capabilities are obviously required. The real test in catching terrorists and making the world a safer place using identity resolution is how decision-making is automated and integrated into existing business processes.

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By the Infoglide Team

intelligent enterprise: They Better Get This MDM Program Right

“As reported in The New York Times and on the TSA Web site, the Secure Flight program will improve upon current practices in matching passenger identities to watch lists in many ways. At first glance, this appears to be a well thought-out program that conforms to several basic tenets of Master Data Management (in bold below), in this case for the ‘Customer’ entity.”

EHRWMS: Georgia’s Best EMR Used By Three of Top Ten Pediatricians

“Of approximately 100 respondents, 28 used an EMR, of which 40% used the EncounterPRO Pediatric EMR. There were only three other EMRs used more than once, and they were used by only 10%, 7%, and 7% of the survey respondents respectively.”

Government Executive: Enforcement agencies boost cooperation on drug investigations

“In addition, ICE agents for the first time will fully participate in the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Fusion Center. The center allows participating federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including DEA and the FBI, to share information and analytical resources to enhance their overall investigative capacity.”

SmartData Collective: The Data-Information Continuum

“Data could be considered a constant while information is a variable that redefines data for each specific use. Data is not truly a constant since it is constantly changing. However, information is still derived from data and many different derivations can be performed while data is in the same state (i.e. before it changes again).”

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[Post from Infoglide] Speaking of Narrative Fallacy

Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable uses “narrative fallacy” to describe how we humans tend to enhance ex post facto our ability to predict events that in fact are extremely complex and random. A recent post on Netrics HD attempts to leverage this argument to demonstrate the superiority of “Machine Learning” (i.e. probabilistic analysis) over “data matching” (i.e. deterministic analysis).

advance: Security and Privacy Challenges to EHR Adoption

“Lest we forget, our country is trying to establish similar capabilities with the widespread initiative to implement electronic health records (EHRs). My health history should travel with me — just as easily as my financial information. With some sort of authentication process, a “core” set of data should be easily available to assist in my receipt of health services.”

New York Times: Flying? Don’t Book Under a Nickname

“The government’s aim is to streamline the process of checking travelers’ names against its watch lists — a task currently handled separately by each airline — and to collect more detailed information so passengers with names similar to those on the watch list are less likely to be mistakenly detained. Asking for a birth date, for instance, decreases the likelihood that a child with a name close to one on the list would be subject to an additional search — one example of a false match that has led to complaints.”

Integrated Solutions for Retailers: Organized Retail Crime: Scope, Solutions

“Popular targets of organized retail crime rings include Crest Whitestrips, Rogaine, Similac baby formula, razor blades, and pregnancy tests. Having not been stored or managed properly, these items can pose serious health risks for innocent shoppers looking for a good bargain. And, because most of these items are sold “new in box,” well-meaning consumers are unaware that what they purchased may be spoiled or expired  —  and stolen.”

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By the Infoglide Team

New England Journal of Medicine: Use of Electronic Health Records in U.S. Hospitals

“The very low levels of adoption of electronic health records in U.S. hospitals suggest that policymakers face substantial obstacles to the achievement of health care performance goals that depend on health information technology.”

Federal Computer Week: Standard updated for reporting suspicious activity

“The changes from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE) come as that office continues a pilot program for the SAR information sharing program at sites around the country. The program uses state and local intelligence fusion centers as a node for verifying and disseminating data on suspicious activity through information technology systems.”

Travel Sentry: 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.”

Central Valley Business Times: Three accused of multi-million workers comp fraud

“‘When businesses cheat the system to save money, they are only setting themselves up to pay later — by serving time in prison,’ says state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Data Source Disintermediation?

“According to Wikipedia, ‘disintermediation is the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain: ‘cutting out the middleman’… Buyers bypass the middlemen (wholesalers and retailers) in order to buy directly from the manufacturer and thereby pay less.’”

[Jim Harris] OCDQ Blog: The Two Headed Monster of Data Matching

“Data matching is commonly defined as the comparison of two or more records in order to evaluate if they correspond to the same real world entity (i.e. are duplicates) or represent some other data relationship (e.g. a family household). Data matching is commonly plagued by what I refer to as The Two Headed Monster…”

CorpWatch: CorpWatch announces release of the CrocTail application and open CorpWatch API

“CrocTail provides an interface for browsing information about several hundred thousand U.S. publicly traded corporations and their many foreign and domestic subsidiaries. Information from company Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings has been parsed and annotated by CorpWatch to highlight specific corporate accountability issues. CrocTail also serves as a demonstration of the features and data available through the CorpWatch API.”

Vos Is Neias: Washington - TSA Advising Travelers To Book Airline Tickets Using Full Real Names

“While the T.S.A. has announced Aug. 15 as a target date for the airlines to begin asking for each passenger’s full name, gender and date of birth, and has already begun publicizing the program, called Secure Flight, the agency acknowledged that it would go into effect in phases as the airlines update their systems.”

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By the Infoglide Team

cnet news: What you need to know about e-health records

“Supporters say electronic medical records will boost the quality of medical care, reduce duplication of services, and limit errors, all of which could save money and lives. The National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine estimates that between 44,000 and 98,000 people in the United States die each year because of errors such as being prescribed medicine to which they are allergic.”

tricityherald.com: Travel restrictions to get tighter June 1

” Beginning June 1, travelers will need either a U.S. passport, a state-issued enhanced driver’s license, a U.S. passport card or a trusted traveler card to enter the country through land or seaports. Passports were made mandatory for air travel in 2007.”

Las Vegas Sun: Fusion center’s attention on prevention

“The trio appeared to be doing the kind of photographic surveillance terrorists might do before they strike a target, the officers concluded. So they contacted the Southern Nevada Counter-Terrorism Center. The center is run by Metro Police and houses investigators and analysts from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in Southern Nevada.”

Destination CRM Blog: Tom Siebel Sends His Regrets

“Our customer data is now more siloed than it ever was, it doesn’t match, and the owners of the respective systems that process it don’t talk to each other much. The single version of the truth has eluded us. We’re still trying to sell customers products they already have.”

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By the Infoglide Team

cnet news: Dragging health records into the Digital Age

“The Obama stimulus package provides $19 billion for hospital technology efforts, which could go a long way toward prodding penny-pinching hospitals and doctors to finally leap into the 21st century.”

FederalComputerWeek: GAO: Secure Flight improved IT security

“The GAO said the TSA since January has corrected deficiencies in information security. By March 20, the TSA had fixed all 60 high- and moderate-risk information security vulnerabilities associated with the final version of Secure Flight, the report states.”

Whittier Daily News: Two La Habra Heights residents charged with workers compensation fraud

“Kimberly Jane Soares, 43, and her husband, Joseph Perry Soares, 47, both of La Habra Heights, and two others were charged with committing more than $12 million in tax and workers compensation insurance fraud for their demolition company, Democo Corp. of Orange.”

Iowa Politics:   Iowa Lottery: All prizes properly paid

“In 2008, the lottery instituted two other security enhancements, requiring that tickets be signed on the back before they can be checked or cashed; and that receipts be printed for all lotto and instant-scratch tickets that are checked or cashed.”

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By Dan Power, President and Founder, Hub Solution Designs

There definitely seems to be a trend lately with small companies in the master data management (MDM) and data quality space being purchased (as in the asset acquisition of Exeros by IBM) or partnering with larger firms (such as Silver Creek Systems’ OEM relationship with Oracle).

I think this is a good thing. Using the classic “build, buy or ally” strategy, it isn’t surprising that sometimes companies will conclude that it’s faster and/or cheaper to buy a technology, or partner with another company that has that technology, rather than build it themselves internally.

A lot of companies do tend to suffer from the “not invented here” syndrome, where anything not developed inside their four walls tends to be regarded with disdain. But that tendency leads to a much slower pace of innovation. In very competitive industries like enterprise software, getting there faster is a very definite advantage.

Since I’ve been working with the identity resolution experts at Infoglide, I’ve become much more aware of the role identity resolution technology plays in our daily lives. Every time you get on an airplane, file an insurance claim, apply for a job / mortgage / credit card, or even shop in a retail store or on a web site, your identity is probably being evaluated by an Identity Resolution Engine.

A lot of people in the MDM space refer to this as “matching”, but there’s considerably more to Identity Resolution than the sophisticated pattern matching that most MDM hub platforms use today. The more robust form – Identity Resolution – is mostly used currently for sophisticated applications like terrorist screening and anti-money laundering, where big consequences or big dollar amounts are at stake.

But that technology is gradually filtering down to more routine commercial applications like master data management for customers. The large MDM vendors like Oracle, IBM and SAP – and the smaller vendors like Siperian, Initiate Systems and D&B/Purisma – will follow the “build, buy or ally” pattern, with some opting to create their own more sophisticated Entity Resolution capabilities, some buying smaller firms who already have those advanced products, or perhaps partnering as a middle ground between building and buying.

Either way, this trend is good both for specialized companies like Infoglide and for the general public. We’ll all be a little safer getting on a plane, a little less likely to suffer from identity theft or confusion, and perhaps save a little money through reduced incidence of various types of fraud.

Full-fledged Identity Resolution is a capability that most MDM hubs should plan on adding in the next revision cycle or two, as MDM customers become more discriminating and more demanding of their hub’s ability to identify individuals and businesses from an ever-growing stream of data.

Dan Power is president of Hub Solution Designs, a consulting firm specializing in master data management and data governance. He writes a popular blog and a column for Information Management magazine, speaks frequently at technology conferences, and regularly advises clients on developing & implementing high impact MDM and data governance strategies.

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By the Infoglide Team

e-patients.net: Meaningful Use: The Elephant IS In The Room

“A recent NPR/Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows that the American public is surprisingly more positive about the potentials of EHRs than most professionals. People already are familiar with computerized information and accept its risks.”

IT-Director.com: Trends in Master Data Management

“The interesting question is how much pressure this puts on the other MDM players with data quality solutions (like Dataflux and SAP/Business Objects) to build out their data profiling capabilities into the area of data discovery.”

NationalSecurity.org: MYTHBUSTER: TSA’S WATCH LIST IS MORE THAN 1 MILLION PEOPLE STRONG

“There are less than 400,000 individuals on the consolidated terrorist watch list and less than 50,000 individuals on the no-fly and selectee lists. Individuals on the no-fly and selectee lists are identified by law enforcement and intelligence partners as legitimate threats to transportation requiring either additional screening or prohibition from boarding an aircraft.”

OCDQ Blog: TDWI World Conference Chicago 2009

“TDWI World Conference Chicago 2009 was held May 3-8 in Chicago, Illinois at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and was a tremendous success.  I attended as a Data Quality Journalist for the International Association for Information and Data Quality (IAIDQ). I used Twitter to provide live reporting from the conference.  Here are my notes from the courses I attended…”

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