A Linguistic Search Standard

Abstract

The identity matching industry is currently experiencing a shift in the paradigm on which it has been based for decades. Traditional methods still dominate the search technology market, but the improved quality achieved by linguistic search techniques is already evident in a number of software products. Vendors of identity matching tools are starting to build linguistic capabilities into their applications in response to growing expectations from corporate users, regulators, law enforcement and the general public. However, the increased flexibility offered by linguistic techniques has lead to less consistency in the way search technology is applied.

Larger organisations frequently maintain many different identity searches across multiple locations and business processes, often with greatly differing configurations. Significant effort can be saved in the design and testing of these different search processes if their individual configurations are underpinned by the same basic principles governing the definition of true and false positive hits. Consistency across different search processes can also lead to greater operational efficiency and fewer problems with satisfying the requirements of auditors, regulators and other external bodies.