What is the Risk-Confidence Gap?

By Jen Snell

As anyone who works in intelligence knows, there’s a widening chasm between the escalating volume and variety of data that must be examined to obtain insight and identify threats, and the resources available to monitor that data. At Babel Street, we call this divide the Risk-Confidence Gap.

But what kinds of data are we talking about? How hard is it to analyze this information for identity intelligence, threat intelligence, and enterprise intelligence?

Let’s take a closer look.

The data deluge

We live in a world where data grows at an almost unimaginable pace. In fact, analysts estimate that roughly 90 percent of the world’s data has been created over just the last two years.[1] Improved access to the Internet via mobile devices, enhanced data-processing capabilities, the rise of social media and other digital communications, the Internet of Things, and the shift to digital business are among the factors spurring the data explosion. As a result, human beings are projected to create about 123 zettabytes of data in 2023.[2]

Visualizing a zettabyte

A zettabyte is a number equal to 10 to the 70th power.[3] Numbers this large are extremely hard to envision. So consider this. Personal computers with 1-terabyte hard drives are now readily available. A terabyte (TB) is a lot of storage. One of these PCs can hold nearly 86 million pages of documents, 17,000 hours of music, or 500 hours of movies.[4] You would need one billion 1TB hard drives to store a zettabyte of information, and 123 billion 1TB hard drives to store 123 zettabytes of information.

Put another way … If you bought five 1TB PCs every single day since the death of the last T-Rex, you would only now have the disk space needed to store the 123 zettabytes of data created this year.

Do you want to sort through all that data the next time you need to match names in highly regulated, high-stakes environments — for financial AML/KYC compliance, perhaps, or military defense? Or when you need to determine whether a visa applicant is a legitimate businessperson or someone with ties to terrorist organizations? Or maybe the next time you need to detect illicit trade, boost criminal investigations, or conduct any of the thousand other tasks where identity intelligence is critical?

Does the thought overwhelm you?

You’re not alone.

Analysis paralysis

Unimagined critical insight hides in all this data, but uncovering that insight isn’t easy. You need rapid, accurate data analysis capabilities to obtain business insight, and to glean the intelligence crucial to identifying and mitigating risk.

But if you’re like many people working in the fields of identity, threat, and enterprise intelligence, you have no way to confidently and efficiently manage the volume and variety of data flying at you in different languages and scripts. Possibly because of a reliance on outdated systems incapable of managing massive data sets, you often feel your analyses are incomplete or flawed. “Analysis paralysis” sets in, slowing decision-making, reducing efficiency, and creating bigger backlogs. Data blind spots further add to the confusion.

You’re stuck in the Risk-Confidence Gap.

Babel Street closes the Risk-Confidence Gap

The Babel Street Insights platform — powered by Rosette Text Analytics and Insights AI — delivers advanced artificial intelligence and data analytics solutions to quickly analyze vast amounts of structured and unstructured publicly available information (PAI) and commercially available information (CAI).

We close the Risk-Confidence Gap by providing you with:

• Superior name-matching capabilities. Rosette Text Analytics capabilities on the Babel Street Insights platform provide quick and accurate identity matching in high-volume, high-velocity data environments. Rosette’s matching capabilities cover all types of entities including individuals and businesses. Using advanced entity resolution technology, Babel Street improves the clarity, accuracy, and transparency of identity matching.

• Comprehensive data analysis. Babel Street Insights offers unparalleled analysis of structured and unstructured PAI and CAI across multiple languages. Babel Street Insights collates and links relevant data, revealing clear and obscure connections. It then produces comprehensive knowledge graphs to help you more easily visualize identities. The platform can also help both business and government users to more easily identify trends, vulnerabilities, and opportunities.

• Proactive risk identification. Leveraging advanced AI, Babel Street Insights excels at identifying and alerting you to potential risks as they emerge. Unlike the sporadic, scheduled checks typical of other systems, Babel Street Insights works nonstop, scanning for risk factors in real time. This continuous vetting empowers you to foresee and manage risks.

• Unparalleled multilingual smart search. More data is being published and posted in non-English languages than ever before. Babel Street Insights stands apart in its ability to search it all. Harnessing unmatched linguistic capabilities, Babel Street Insights empowers users to run English-based Boolean search queries across 200+ native languages and more than 500 petabytes of open source and dark web data. This enables you to dive deep, discovering exact representations of your search terms in their native script. Experience a realm of search that’s truly without parallel.

• Automated social network and relationship mapping. Apply cutting-edge AI-powered automation to social networks and relevant relationships. Quickly uncover connections and discover key influencers. Babel Street’s advanced algorithms accurately score and prioritize critical entities within the relationship network.

• Scores that make sense. The sophisticated, configurable match scoring system used by Babel Street Insights is configurable, transparent, and easy to understand. It helps provide you with a clearer, confident view of the risk landscape and empowers you to prioritize your response to the risks you uncover.

Babel Street is a trusted technology partner for the world’s most advanced identity intelligence and risk operations. More than 84 percent of United States national security agencies count on Babel Street. They use our technology for more than 1 billion watchlist checks each day. These agencies turn to Babel Street for their high-stakes identity and risk operations because we rapidly provide unmatched insight, proactive risk identification, and always-on searches.

Start closing the Risk-Confidence Gap today. Learn more at babelstreet.com.

Endnotes

1. Duarto, Fabio, “Amount of Data Created Daily (2023),” Exploding Topics, April 3 2023, https://explodingtopics.com/blog/data-generated-per-day

2. Ibid

3. Chojecki, Przemek, “How Big is Big Data?” Toward Data Science, January 31 2019, https://towardsdatascience.com/how-big-is-big-data-3fb14d5351ba

4. University of Oregon, “A Terabyte of Storage Space: How Much is Too Much?” The Information Umbrella: Musings on Applied Information Management, accessed August 28 2023, https://aimblog.uoregon.edu/2014/07/08/a-terabyte-of-storage-space-how-much-is-too-much/

Disclaimer

All names, companies, and incidents portrayed in this document are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, companies, and products are intended or should be inferred.