The Application of Identity Matching Techniques

Although not a primary business process in itself, identity matching plays a crucial role behind the scenes in many modern organisations. As a discrete function that can be incorporated into a variety of different business processes, identity matching has a wide ranging scope that covers areas as diverse as risk management, customer support and data integration. Even within smaller organisations, there are often multiple processes that rely on identity matching techniques in some form. In larger organisations there may be dozens of systems incorporating the searching and matching of identity data, including customer service applications, human resource systems, data quality solutions, credit control functions and regulatory compliance systems.

This chapter describes how strong identity matching solutions can help manage risks in a wide variety of areas. These risk management advantages are maximised if identity matching methods are standardised so that comparable results are achieved wherever identity matching is applied within an organisation. In addition, the diversity of potential uses for identity matching techniques means that there are often significant cost and efficiency advantages to be gained from the standardisation of identity matching practices across an organisation, particularly in the areas of technology development, training, operations and licensing fees. The advantages of standardisation and a possible framework for achieving this are considered in Chapter 14.

This chapter looks more closely at the wide variety of application areas for identity matching techniques and the different ways in which getting the identity matching technology right can benefit an organisation.