Identity Resolution Daily

Achieving a balance between privacy and security is critically important to the survival of our American democracy. At this juncture in our history, the threat of terrorism has caused us to restrict some rights to privacy for the sake of national security. Without a certain level of security then American lives will be lost. Conversely, without a certain level of privacy, the American way of life will be lost. And at times, we as a nation have made mistakes when the pendulum has swung too far either way. Fortunately, we seem to keep returning to a state of equilibrium. It’s the howls of protest that arise when proponents of one side earns a win over the other, the constant, never-ending debate that keeps both sides in check and ensures a perpetual balance.

Yesterday, an article in Wired stirred up another great, democracy-affirming debate that caused quite a ruckus with Internet denizens. In U.S. Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read, Ryan Singel reports that,

“International travelers concerned about being labeled a terrorist or drug runner by secret Homeland Security algorithms may want to be careful what books they read on the plane. Newly revealed records show the government is storing such information for years.

“Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government routinely records the race of people pulled aside for extra screening as they enter the country, along with cursory answers given to U.S. border inspectors about their purpose in traveling. In one case, the records note Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore’s choice of reading material, and worry over the number of small flashlights he’d packed for the trip.”

(For the FOIA documents found by the Identity Project, see Homeland Security’s Data Vacuum Cleaner In Action.)

And this was all it took to spark another great debate. At the bottom of Mr. Singel’s article you’ll find 47 comments, taking up both sides:

Writes “scorpion”:

“Airport today, anytown street corner tomorrow! Afterall, couldn’t a terrorist be moving about practically anywhere, traveling by any means? Why should I fear to be potentially carrying the ‘wrong kind of book’ under my arm, in that I may suffer harrassment from police, or possibly get black-listed as a dissident (into a government database)? Can we even count on these security personnel to be advanced literature scholars, and not simply interpreting & analyzing reading material on limited knowledge and a few “catch words” in the title?”

Countered by “ed34222,”who writes:

“Not sure what the big deal is. There is not expectation of privacy at the airport or border. They are storing info about people that they may need to pay more attention to. They are not interfering with the travel of those people unless a good reason exists. They are not telling anyone what to read. The assumption that terrorists will somehow know what not to do or read or whatever doesn’t make sense … unless our media tells them. The idea isn’t thought policing. The idea is getting enough intelligence to thwart the next attack.”

Over on Slashdot, there’s 450 comments — most are not printable here. But profanity-laced diatribes aside, the debate follows the same back and forth between privacy and security advocates. And a search on Technorati turns up 85 blogs who’ve posted on this subject, including BoingBoing, the second most popular blog in the world. Even bibliophile bloggers got into the act — here, here and here.

However, just at the debate was getting frothy, Mr. Singel published an update to his original story, 17 hours later. In Homeland Security Not Interested in Your Books, DHS Says, a DHS spokesperson said,

“I flatly reject the premise that we care at all about the latest Tom Clancy novel a traveler is reading. But the fact does remain that CBP officials are going to be mindful of whether there is anything that suggests there could be possible violations of a law associated with a traveler or items in possession of a traveler as they make an admissibility decision about that traveler. That is what they are charged by Congress to do.”

They’re also charged with looking for evidence of drug smuggling. And in Mr. Singel’s original story, he wrote that the book Mr. Gilmore brought through security was “Drugs and Your Rights” and the flashlight he carried had pot leaves on them. So yes, he got a little extra attention from security. When nothing was found, he was allowed to travel on.

Ultimately, this debate went nowhere. It did however serve to remind the securicrats that the privacy advocates will always be watching and blogging. And if our Founding Fathers had blogs, you know Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson would have gotten into a flame war of these two lines:

“He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.” — Franklin

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” — Jefferson

When it comes to the need for security versus the right to privacy, the pendulum is always moving back and forth. And thanks to the balance of powers outlined in the U.S. Constitution and the advocates on both sides of the debate, this pendulum has so far always found equilibrium.

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[Daily Post from Infoglide Software] A Red Carpet for the Good Customers with Identity Resolution

“How important is identity resolution to maintaining relationships with good customers? Ask Kmart. If they had had an identity resolution solution in place, then they likely wouldn’t have just been publicly pilloried in the Wall Street Journal. Oh, and they also lost a good customer and the friends and family members of this customer.”

[Editor’s note: Today’s identity resolution chatter is focused on the kinds of data gathered and stored by DHS. First up: charges by the Identity Projectabout the government’s alleged storing of personal information, followed by two links with responses from government officials.]

UnSecureFlight.com: Homeland Security’s Data Vacuum Cleaner In Action

“The results of an investigation by the Identity Project show that DHS is actively collecting information on what Americans read, with whom they associate, and the ethnicity of individual American travelers. DHS is also actively acquiring the travel records of Americans that document non-US travel, e.g., intra-European flights. Almost one hundred pages of travel records were turned-over by DHS to the Identity Project in response to Privacy Act requests.

Wired: U.S. Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read

“Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government routinely records the race of people pulled aside for extra screening as they enter the country, along with cursory answers given to U.S. border inspectors about their purpose in traveling. In one case, the records note Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore’s choice of reading material, and worry over the number of small flashlights he’d packed for the trip.”

Threat Level: Homeland Security Not Interested in Your Books, DHS Says

“‘I flatly reject the premise that we care at all about the latest Tom Clancy novel a traveler is reading,’ Knocke said. ‘But the fact does remain that CBP officials are going to be mindful of whether there is anything that suggests there could be possible violations of a law associated with a traveler or items in possession of a traveler as they make an admissibility decision about that traveler,’ Knocke said. ‘That is what they are charged by Congress to do.’”

CQ Homeland Security: Officials Defend Privacy Record of Intelligence Sharing Centers

“Officials involved with the development of fusion centers aimed at sharing intelligence with state and local authorities around the country said Wednesday that the centers pose no danger to privacy.”

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How important is identity resolution to maintaining relationships with good customers? Ask Kmart. If they had had an identity resolution solution in place, then they likely wouldn’t have just been publicly pilloried in the Wall Street Journal. Oh, and they also lost a good customer and the friends and family members of this customer.

The whole story can be found here in The Accidental Thief, but here’s basically what happened.

WSJ reporter Laura Landro mistakenly put the wrong pair of flip flops into a box and went through the checkout line. Outside of Kmart, Ms. Landro got a tap on the shoulder from a a loss prevention professional, who asked her to come back inside the store. Assuming she could easily explain her mistake, she told her family she would be right back. Instead, in her words,

“I was led to a windowless security room in the back of the store, detained for an hour and accused of deliberately switching a more expensive item into a cheaper box. The adult flip-flops, it turned out, were $24.50, and the box had been for a child’s size nine, with a $16.50 price. My stunned protestations and explanations were summarily dismissed. My driver’s license and credit card were temporarily confiscated, I was told to expect a civil notice of a fine by mail, and finally, I was advised never to return to the store.

“Though no law enforcement or court was involved, I was effectively tried, convicted and punished for a crime I didn’t intend to commit. As for my dismay at the way I was treated, there was little I could do, other than take my future business to Wal-Mart or Target. And as I later learned from security and legal experts, the store had acted reasonably and within its rights in treating me as a criminal.”

So Ms. Landro, who had just spent $800 in the store, was treated disrespectfully over an $8 pair of shoes and now she’ll never return to Kmart — even if they hadn’t asked her to never return. Worse still, this story is in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s more of Ms. Landro’s retelling of her apprehension:

“…while I understood [the store employee’s] job was to protect the store from loss, I was a regular customer, a professional, and an upstanding citizen, and my family had just spent hundreds of dollars in the store. Did I seem to him like someone who would cheat the store out of $8 and risk this kind of treatment?

“Unmoved, he told me that he had seen what I did, and ‘people like you come in here all the time and do this.’”

Here’s what would have happened if Kmart had been using an identity resolution solution.

Retail stores collect more data on their customers than just about any other industry. The problem is that all this data is usually spread across different systems, platforms and even geographies. With an identity resolution solution in place, the store employee would have been able to run a check through all of Kmart’s databases — both positive and negative — and he could have verified that indeed Ms. Landro was all the things she said she was.

You see, identity resolution is an operational intelligence process, typically powered by an identity resolution engine, whereby organizations can search disparate data sources with a view to understanding possible identity matches and non-obvious relationships across those sources. It analyzes all of the information relating to individuals from multiple sources of data, and then applies likelihood and probability scoring to determine which identities are a match and what, if any, linkage exists between those identities.

Identity resolution engines are typically used to uncover risk, fraud, and conflicts of interest and we cover those uses here all the time. But this solution is also a useful tool for use within customer data integration (CDI) and master data management (MDM) requirements.

For example, if Ms. Landro had no negatives in her score, then the store employee would have immediately known that instead of giving her a red flag, he should be rolling out the red carpet for her.

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[Daily Post from Infoglide Software] Stolen Baby Formula Funding Terrorism. Where’s the Outrage?

“Where is all that money going? Has the problem grown worse since 2005? And where’s the mainstream media on this story? You’d think the juxtaposition between terrorists and baby formula would draw Dateline and 60 Minutes — or at least Geraldo Rivera.”

CNNMoney: IBM Awarded TSA Contract for Operational Application Support and Information Services

“IBM is the prime contractor on the OASIS contract, and has assembled a team of business partners to complete the project including Deloitte Consulting and Lockheed Martin, as well as Akamai, Arc Aspicio, Blackstone Consulting Group, Enterprise Solutions Realized, Infoglide Software, Intellgent Decisions, Knightfork, Microlink, Optimal Solutions and Technologies, Oracle, Pragmatics, Procentrix, RCM Solutions and VIP.”

Financial TImes: UBOC faces security penalty

The US bank faces a $10m civil penalty and a $21.6m payment to the Department of Justice for its failure to monitor adequately Mexican casa de cambio accounts and report suspicious activity in a timely manner, the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said in a statement.

WSJ: The Accidental Thief

“According to the National Retail Federation, U.S. retailers last year lost an estimated $40.5 billion to ’shrinkage’ — as the industry refers to shoplifting, employee theft, and other inventory losses — up from $37.5 billion the year before. While total retail sales rose, shrinkage as a percentage of sales fell just slightly to 1.57% from 1.59%, which means retailers haven’t made much of a dent in stemming their losses.”

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On 9/11/2001, the day terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, a state trooper in Texas pulled over a Middle Eastern man driving a rental van. The officer noted that the van was full of baby formula. Later, the police realized the driver was a known terrorist linked to an organized retail crime (ORC) ring that traveled the nation stealing baby formula. And the money made from reselling this particular truck load was wired to the Middle East and never seen again.

This story comes from a 2005 story in the Christian Science Monitor that reported retailers suffered through $30 billion in theft that year and stolen baby formula made up approximately $7 billion of that total.

Seven billion dollars in stolen baby formula?

Where is all that money going? Has the problem grown worse since 2005? And where’s the mainstream media on this story? You’d think the juxtaposition between terrorists and baby formula would draw Dateline and 60 Minutes — or at least Geraldo Rivera.

In that 2005 story, the Monitor noted that there were more than 1,000 offers of Enfamil baby formula available on eBay. Two years later, and despite the fact that many states now require buyers to purchase baby formula from licensed wholesalers, you can find 2,634 offers for Enfamil on eBay.

Mark Clayton of the Monitor wrote

“Operation Blackbird, as Texas investigators dubbed their multistate baby-formula investigation, has since led to felony charges against more than 40 suspects, about half illegal immigrants. Authorities have seized some $2.7 million in stolen assets, including $1 million worth of formula.

“Blackbird was just the beginning. In the nearly four years since 9/11, police have uncovered and dismantled a growing number of regional and national theft rings specializing in shoplifted infant formula, over-the-counter medicines, and personal-care products. At least eight of the major baby-formula cases have involved ‘fences’ who are of Middle Eastern descent or who have ties to that region, according to a Monitor review of congressional testimony, news accounts, and a study by the National Retail Federation released Tuesday.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has traced money from these infant-formula traffickers back to nations where terrorist groups, such as Hamas and Hizbullah, are active, investigators say. Then, the trail usually goes cold. Once funds enter such countries, there’s often no way to track them.”

Is this a growing trend?

Here’s a 2003 story about a trafficker in baby formula who stood to may make a profit of $4 million but was caught by the Canadian Mounties. Mohamad S. Mostafa had been in reselling baby formula since 1994, but he wasn’t caught till a month after 9/11.

Recently, there’s been lots of baby formula thefts in the news:

Two held in formula thefts
Grocer reaches plea deal in theft ring case (for laundering $70 million)

And just this week, a federal judge agreed to let Ali Kareem Aladimi withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial over the “63 original charges of conspiracy to distribute dangerous drugs, money laundering, bank fraud and dealing in stolen goods,” according to the Middletown Journal. Federal prosecutors alledge that Mr. Aladimi sold stolen baby from 1993-2002 and in a raid in 1999 they found $54,000 worth of stolen Gerber baby formula and $760,000 in cash packed in shrink-wrapped Clairol hair-coloring kits.

Finally, there’s this scary news in FrontPage Magazine’s story, Terror Criminal Links Growing

“The former International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director, Michel Camdessus, estimated that money laundered worldwide 1999, totaled between 2% and 5% of combined gross domestic product (GDP)—or approximately $1.8 trillion. By April 2006, the IMF’s World Economic Outlook estimate of the world economy was $65.174 trillion. Considering the rise of radical Muslim terrorist groups, and the dramatic increase in ‘ordinary’ crime, as well as major technological advances, it is now estimated that at least $5 trillions are being laundered annually, 70% are thought to be generated from the illegal drug trade.”

In the very last line of of “Terror Criminal Links Growing” authors Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen suggest, “it would seem prudent for law enforcement to take a closer look at the identities and profiles of each and every ‘ordinary’ criminal seized, be it drug dealers, car thieves, or ‘white collar’ criminals.”

Sounds like a recommendation for widespread adoption of identity resolution solutions to us and we’d have to agree. Back on August 13th, our post Baby Formula: Out of the Mouths of Babes and into the Coffers of Terrorists recommended that retailers should assist the FBI’s LERPnet program to track down organized retail crime rings “by organizing and analyzing in-house retail data with the implementation of an identity resolution solution.”

With terror funding rising nearly $3 trillion dollars since 1999, and as we’ve seen up above, possibly $7 billion comes from organized retail crime gangs in the U.S. stealing baby formula, where’s the outrage? Where’s Congress on this issue? Where’s the press?

This is a serious issue and action needs to be taken immediately.

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[Daily Post from Infoglide Software] Union Bank of California Forfeits $21M, Fined $10M for BSA Violations

“So they received a warning, took a year to fix all the compliance issues and they were still penalized? The Monday morning quarterback in me would hazard to guess that Union Bank’s compliance officers went into high gear when they were warned. Union Bank is the nation’s 27th largest bank and they’re not stupid. I’m sure they did everything in the power to comply with the BSA, but the law as it stands is too ambiguous.”

ComputerWorld: House committee chair wants info on canceled DHS data-mining programs

“Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, has asked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to provide a detailed listing of all IT programs that have been canceled, discontinued or modified because of privacy concerns. He also asked for details on the amount of money the DHS spent on each program, the names of contractors who were awarded the projects, and information about the measures being taken to address privacy issues.”

FrontPage Magazine: Terror Criminal Links Growing

“The former International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director, Michel Camdessus, estimated that money laundered worldwide 1999, totaled between 2% and 5% of combined gross domestic product (GDP)—or approximately $1.8 trillion. By April 2006, the IMF’s World Economic Outlook estimate of the world economy was $65.174 trillion. Considering the rise of radical Muslim terrorist groups, and the dramatic increase in ‘ordinary’ crime, as well as major technological advances, it is now estimated that at least $5 trillions are being laundered annually, 70% are thought to be generated from the illegal drug trade.”

Homeland Security Watch: Show Me the Money - and More

“Technology is in great need at DHS, but the budget is far smaller than anything similar at DOD. Hence the market forces that came for coffee this morning. An underlying assumption made explicit by almost every panelist was that the most successful technologies for homeland security will require a commercial application.”

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By Glenn Hopkins, Director of Financial Services

The Department of Justice announced yesterday that Union Bank of California has “entered into a deferred prosecution agreement on charges of failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and will forfeit $21.6 million to the U.S. government.” Additionally, both the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) docked Union Bank another $20 million, but let the civil penalty be satisfied with a $10 million payment.

The press release put Union Bank through a virtual perp walk, with spokespeople for DOJ, IRS and DEA all piling on:

“Banks that knowingly disregard their legal obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act are easily exploited by drug cartels and other criminals,” said Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division. The Department of Justice will continue to work to make sure banks follow the law and put these vital anti-money laundering programs in place.”

“Our American economy depends on the integrity of financial institutions and the work of those institutions to ensure compliance with anti-money laundering regulations,” stated Eileen Mayer, Chief, IRS Criminal Investigation. “This investigation clearly demonstrates law enforcement’s commitment to enforcing these regulations, which assist in our efforts to detect and halt criminal activity like drug trafficking.”

“In a multi-billion dollar illegal drug market, the law requires and DEA depends on financial institutions to know their customers and practice due diligence,” said Drug Enforcement Administrator Karen P. Tandy. “When banks fail to uphold their responsibilities, they turn their legitimate business into a currency stash house used by international drug traffickers to line their pockets, fuel more trafficking, and corrupt government officials and global economies. The Union Bank of California will pay the price for its failure with a hefty fee.”

That Karen Tandy sure has a way with her quotes. Back in August when American Expressed was fined $65 million — the largest money laundering penalty paid by a U.S. financial institution, according to Forbes — Ms Tandy sounded like the narrator for the old Untouchables series (see our post.)

Besides the hefty fee, Union Bank is surely reeling with the damage done to the institution’s reputation. There’s little chance that this fine and attendant publicity will cause a run on the bank like the one $2 billion in panicky withdrawals that Northern Rock suffered in the UK last Friday. Still, negative news has a cumulative effect that can make bank customers nervous, irrational even.

Here’s my main question regarding this whole affair: What could Union Bank have done differently to avoid this whole mess?

According to the LA Times,

“In 2005, the bank signed a memorandum of understanding with authorities under which it was required to improve its systems for detecting such activities and notifying authorities. The comptroller’s office said an examination last year found that the bank’s compliance was still ineffective, in violation of the terms of the memo. Union Bank said it expected to meet the conditions of the deferred-prosecution agreement within the one-year time frame, spokesman Stephen Johnson said in a telephone interview.

“‘We still have work to do,’ he said.”

So they received a warning, took a year to fix all the compliance issues and they were still penalized? The Monday morning quarterback in me would hazard to guess that Union Bank’s compliance officers went into high gear when they were warned. Union Bank is the nation’s 27th largest bank and they’re not stupid. I’m sure they did everything in the power to comply with the BSA, but the law as it stands is too ambiguous. I’m sure they bent over backwards to Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Customer’s Customer (KYCC) but in the end they didn’t Know Exactly What Federal Banking Regulations Require You to Know. (KEWFBRRYK).

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[Daily Post from Infoglide Software] The Diogenesian Pursuit of Honest Employees

“Trying to find honest employees can make you feel like Diogenes, the Greek philosopher who walked the streets of Athens looking for an honest man. To help out in his quest, Diogenes carried a lantern with him during the light of day, but purportedly never had much luck. Fortunately, rather than using lanterns, retailers now have more advanced technology tools that can help out with the employee screening process.”

Homeland Security Affairs: Generational Hazards

“So what can the fall of Rome teach us? Are there any lessons for today’s homeland security officials in the threat matrix faced by ancient Rome? Perhaps the overarching lesson is that to prosper, great societies must acknowledge and manage both external and internal threats. To simply focus on one while ignoring the other is a recipe for disaster.”

Los Angeles Times: Union Bank agrees to settle criminal charge

“Union Bank of California agreed to forfeit $21.6 million to settle a criminal charge that it failed to maintain an effective program to prevent money laundering, even after promising to do a better job of complying with federal regulations, the U.S. Justice Department said.”

Associated Content: California Bank Fined $31 Million for Skimping on Anti-Money Laundering Campaign

“The Bank Security Act requires the banks to establish and maintain a program that must at least provide for internal policies, procedures, and controls that are specifically designed to guard against money laundering, the bank must coordinate and monitor the day-to-day compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act, maintain an ongoing employee training program; and implement independent testing for compliance conducted by bank personnel or an outside party. Their program must also be able to identify and report suspicious financial transactions to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.”

Forbes: UnionBanCal’s Drug Money Problem

“U.S. financial institutions have increasingly been implicated in drug money laundering networks and have been hit hard when they get caught. In August, Forbes first disclosed that American Express (nyse: AXP) had been used by Colombians to launder drug money through the black market peso exchange, a trade-based money laundering system. American Express agreed to pay $65 million, the largest money laundering penalty paid by a U.S. financial institution, to deal with Justice Department claims that its international private banking group was used to launder $55 million of Colombian drug proceeds. BankAtlantic Bancorp (nasdaq: BBXT), a small bank in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., paid $10 million to settle similar allegations last year.”

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Trying to find honest employees can make you feel like Diogenes, the Greek philosopher who walked the streets of Athens looking for an honest man. To help out in his quest, Diogenes carried a lantern with him during the light of day, but purportedly never had much luck. Fortunately, rather than using lanterns, retailers now have more advanced technology tools that can help out with the employee screening process.

An identity resolution solution is particularly well-suited for the Diogenesian pursuit of honest employees because it helps identify the obviously dishonest.

Identity resolution solutions aggregate information from a variety of data stores to form a clear, composite depiction of the identity of an individual. For employment pre-screening, this solution glides across multiple data sources (e.g., lists of known shoplifters, bad check writers, vendors, returns, perpetrators of organized retail crime, and LERPnet), applies sophisticated similarity search techniques to resolve multiple identities, and presents a single view of an individual that highlights otherwise hidden relationships based on the similarity of multiple attributes. For employee monitoring, the same process can check periodically to detect employees who may have been added to these sources of information after being hired.

In other words, it’s easier to shine a light on the honest employees, once you’ve tapped into your own in-house databases and ferreted out the dishonest ones.

How bad is employee theft?

Best keep the light on in that lantern because here’s some stats that will scare you:

“A national survey released in June found that one-quarter of job applicants lied or gave erroneous information. Avert Inc.’s survey, based on 1.8 million workers, also found that background checks led employers to disqualify about 13 percent of screened job applicants.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“In a sample study of 300,000 background checks conducted by U.S.A. Fact, the company found: 5% of applicants had criminal records; 36% had motor vehicle violations; prior employment was unverifiable for 18%; and education could not be verified for 11%.” — Strategic HR Services

“According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, 75 percent of all employee thefts went unnoticed. The average amount taken in retail was estimated at $1,750 per incident, and $3,400 per incident in all other business.” — Lacrosse Tribune

“According to the U.S. Department of Justice, insider theft is growing at a rate of 15 percent annually. A Department of Commerce study revealed that one-third of all employees steal from their employers.” — Information Management Journal

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[Daily Post from Infoglide Software] American Express Fined $65 Million. Meanwhile, Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering STILL Needs Work

“Without clear guidelines for what is required, banks do what they can but if they end op getting fined, that’s just a cost of doing business. As to the cost to an institution’s reputation, that’s a whole another matter entirely.”

TradingMarkets: Metavante Announces Regulatory Services Web Site and Expands Compliance Offering as a Service

“An independent survey recently conducted by Leede Research Group on behalf of Metavante revealed the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and USA PATRIOT Act to be the most challenging compliance issues facing the nation’s community and regional banks, with 98 percent planning a risk-based assessment of their anti-money laundering (AML) programs in 2007.”

Retail Solutions: Loss Prevention: Sanyo TV Implements SIRAS.COM Retail Technology

“Sanyo Televisions, sold predominantly through Wal-Mart, is using SIRAS’s technology across its entire product line and is already actively engaged in using the system. Conforming with SIRAS serialization requirements, Sanyo’s packaging includes both the UPC and serial number bar codes on the outside, so that the products can be quickly and easily scanned and recorded by the retailer at the time of consumer purchase. Sanyo has also implemented the additional program feature of pre-registering products prior to shipment. Pre-registration allows retailers and manufacturers to track the return attempts of products that have bypassed the POS system and may have been stolen or purchased elsewhere. This service also offers a wealth of additional lifecycle intelligence opportunities.”

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