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WorldCompliance introduces new name matching tool to aid in the war against terrorism
Date: March 29, 2010
WorldCompliance introduces new name matching tool to aid in the war against terrorism
Miami Fl — March 29, 2010: Relying on exact name matching – as offered by so many due diligence databases, can be dangerous, as evidenced by the “underwear bomber” at Christmas last year.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, better known as the Christmas bomber, benefited from the many spelling variations of his name and ultimately slipped through the security net. When taking into account, that up to 13 different spelling variations of the Christmas Bomber are considered correct, it’s easy to see how important the use of a sophisticated name matching tool is. Surprisingly, many of the due diligence tools in the fight against terrorism and corruption that financial industry, fortune 1000s and government bodies use today, actually rely on exact name matching, which increases the danger of overlooking a potentially high-risk individual.
The Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. house of representatives in their March 24 Statement of Record on Sharing and Analyzing Information to Prevent Terrorism http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20100324_ testimony.pdf, pointed out that “Partial names and different spellings complicated the linkage” specifically referring to the Abdulmutallab case.
Miami headquartered WorldCompliance, a leader in Open Source Intelligence today announced the implementation of its new name-matching algorithm designed to aid private industry and government agencies in reducing risk. Using this tool, which is a hybrid of fuzzy logic, name parsing and cultural cataloguing of name variations, clients can efficiently capture name variations and dramatically improve the chances of identifying high-risk individuals.
“WorldCompliance now captures spelling variances even better. The highly advanced name matching algorithm ensures that clients will have better protection from missing a high risk entity. Transliteration of a name from one language to another is not an issue for our clients” said Dirk Mohrmann, World Compliance CEO.
In the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the WorldCompliance database flags not only the name that was actually used by the Christmas Bomber, but also all of the 13 widely recognized spelling variations that could have been used.”
“Simply put, if the person vetting Mr. Abdulmutallab’s documents had used the WorldCompliance name matching algorithm, they would have had a better chance of detaining him before he ever set foot on the flight to Detroit” concluded Mr. Mohrmann.
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