As South African borders open up to jubilant soccer enthusiasts streaming in to watch the 2010 World Cup, they will allow unwanted individuals access and offer increased opportunities for illegal activities, from money laundering to narcotics trafficking, unless they are made technologically more secure.
This is the warning from Bateleur Software`s Lizette Sander, who is responsible for the data management solutions and identity resolution solutions offered by that company. "The challenge today for those charged with watching and securing our borders is to quickly and accurately screen people to differentiate those entitled to enter the country and those that aren`t," she said.
"Upon entering a country, an individual`s passport must be cross-checked against other pieces of information: criminal watch lists, immigration or visa applications or some form of intelligence database," she explained, "and this is where problems become apparent for homeland security and other border control agencies that must rely on multiple sources of data to verify and resolve identity.
"The words we use to label things are chosen from a very different vocabulary than everyday language; there are no dictionaries, spell checkers or rules for the names of people, places, things or even addresses. The apparent humdrum process of transliterating names from one language to another is being exploited by criminals and intelligence agencies are needing to use new software to handle the arcane business of comparing lists of names."
Concern over immigration and border control dominated the world agenda in 2007 and countries have moved swiftly to implement database, identity and fingerprinting systems. The market was said to be worth $3.5 billion in 2008.
In border control applications the consequences of over-matching, targeting people who should not be targeted, are nearly as severe as under-matching, missing people that should be targeted. Border security needs a system that allows them to accurately and consistently search, match and link identities across data sources that may be in different formats, character sets and languages with possible variable data quality.
One of the basic pieces of information used to establish identity is a name, and a rose by any other name is not a rose, as William becomes Bill, Libby can be Elizabeth, Thabalala could be Tshabalala, and Michael on a passport might be Mike or even Micheal on a watch list.
Some other examples from around the world: the Chinese family name Zhou may be written by English speakers as Jhou, Joe, Chou or Chow; Jafari, the common English transliteration of an Iranian name, is rendered in German as Djafari or Dschafari; and there are more than 200 different ways to write Mohammed. The same applies to business names: IBM and I.B.M. look like the same thing to the human eye, but to a computer system they are very different entities. Transposing words or names from one language or alphabet into another is evidently an inexact science.
"One of the biggest problems is variations of names," said the CIA`s Michael Scheuer, "and analysis used to be backbreaking. Name-matching can play a crucial role in counter-terrorism."
Ambiguities in names can cause huge problems for intelligence analysts trying to monitor and prevent criminal activity. In an effort to avoid being picked out by computer watch-lists, many terrorists use alternative (but linguistically legitimate) transliterations of their names, and that is why companies in a fast-growing corner of the software industry have developed robust name-matching programs that can take into account the thousands of possible transliterations of a particular name.
Identity Systems is one such system and was recently acquired by Informatica Corporation, a leading independent provider of data integration software. Previously a Nokia subsidiary, Identity Systems is the pioneer in identity resolution technology enabling precise cross-language identity search and matching to find required critical information for individuals or organisations, and this technology is currently employed in both Authorised to Carry (ATC) and Port of Entry situations around the globe, and is being used to monitor freight traffic by a number of border control and customs agencies.
According to Sander, the Informatica solution is "quite simply, the most intelligent and accurate identity searching, matching and screening software around."
As watch-lists multiply, demand for name-matching software is likely to grow. The financial services industry is also adopting the technology, which is often required by central banks and monetary authorities. In America, the Treasury`s Office of Foreign Assets Control is one of the world`s largest users of name-matching technology and it uses it to compile watch-lists that are sent to thousands of banks worldwide.
"Identity resolution technology is used by banking and financial organisations in a range of solutions that involve customer identity information to improve everything from customer service to anti-money laundering compliance," said Sander. "In Africa, we have unique challenges with branches in remote locations, limited access to the Internet, many differing languages and legislation.
"Identity resolution is an important part of tackling the challenges faced by financial institutions and specifically, money laundering. Banks have a strict regulatory environment in which they operate and there is a growth in the number of lists that banks need to monitor.
"Today there is increased international pressure and focus on counter-terrorism and maintaining sanction compliance. Violating sanctions results in a severely damaged reputation, with substantial financial ramifications and possible criminal action," she said.
Everyone is familiar with the red-faced Mark Thatcher and his bungled Equatorial Guinea coup plot, but Guinea`s leader, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, has salted millions of US dollars all over the world under the many different variations of his name. Once it became apparent that he stashed US$15 million with Riggs Bank in Washington DC, the bank was fined US$25 million for its laxity, and according to Harper`s Magazine, once the money was ejected it found its way into "European and South African banks".
Name-matching software is also becoming more sophisticated and performing other functions. The name-matching software made by Identity Systems is used by more than 200 government agencies around the world. As well as flagging names on watch-lists, it also sifts historical records to reveal hidden relationships: if two men have entered a country several times on the same plane, sitting apart from each other, might one be a money-runner and the other his overseer?
Success today depends on how efficiently and effectively an organisation - whether a commercial entity or a government agency - uses available information, and one of the greatest challenges organisations face when trying to gain a strategic advantage from information is dealing with identity data: the information that specifically and accurately identifies a client, a prospect, a supplier, a taxpayer, a criminal suspect, a product.
Well-known industry expert, David Loshin, commented: "My prediction? In the short-term Master Data Management (MDM) vendors will need to integrate high-performance identity resolution into their solutions, and we can anticipate related new uses of searching and matching technologies."
Name-matching software is just one small item in a country`s or organisation`s toolbox, but it can play a crucial role by enabling analysts to piece together snippets of intelligence. What`s in a name? The answer, in most cases, is a surprising amount of valuable information.
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