Enriching E-discovery Results with Identity Resolution
By Robert Barker, Infoglide Senior VP & Chief Marketing Officer
Civil lawsuits often result in discovery orders from the court to produce every shred of possibly relevant internal communication. The need to comprehend patterns across the resulting vast amount of aggregated data is critical. To help organizations respond to these demands, powerful e-discovery software systems (e.g., see StoredIQ) create data topology maps that identify the relationships between active sources of multiple forms of electronically stored information (ESI).
Reading about how it works made me speculate, “What value might identity resolution bring to e-discovery?” Identity resolution (AKA “entity resolution”) technology has been used to create solutions for a wide range of problems. Most often, this involves creating an understanding about people and their hidden relationships with other people and organizations. Lottery retailer fraud, airline passenger screening, and workers’ compensation are a just a few examples of areas that have benefited from applying this emerging technology.
Since lawsuits revolve around people, it shouldn’t be surprising that technology capturing enriched information about the identities of the actors involved in the suit could greatly illuminate what’s known about the parties involved. For example, imagine if an augmentation of e-discovery with identity resolution could do two things for each person involved in the suit:
- Automate detection of hidden relationships between the participants and other relevant players by drawing from multiple public and private data sources; and
- Generate link analyses, including graphical depictions involving the participants and other “entities” like conversation threads, that greatly enrich the litigants’ understanding.
Caveat: I’m not an e-discovery expert. However, based on what we know about identity resolution, I wonder if it’s possible to enhance the results of the e-discovery process?
If you have knowledge and experience in the space, I’d like to hear your thoughts.
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