Six Degrees of Separation: How Investigative Software Connects the Dots

Understanding relationships and data linkages is critical to a successful investigation — whether trying to find a missing person, conducting due diligence or handling a fraud case. But the sheer volume of data available today can render relevant connections fuzzy or difficult to prioritize.

Many investigators also don’t realize the number of connections a single data point can provide. Just as with the “six degrees of separation” theory, finding the shortest path between two pieces of information can reveal the loose thread in a mountain of data that unravels a hard-to-solve case.

Sift through big data quickly to uncover actionable intelligence

No matter the use case, organizations need more than data — they need actionable intelligence that helps them conduct faster investigations and uncover links between individuals and their assets. For example, when conducting due diligence on a business, actionable address data can shed light on hidden relationships between its executives and known criminals, saving the investigating company from potentially significant losses or a compromised reputation.

In another case, reversing verifiable mobile phone numbers can help find aliases connected to different Social Security numbers, uncovering questionable customers before their fraudulent intentions cost an organization money. Vehicle registration data, including partial license plate information, can also be used to detect insurance fraud in which people register a car in a state they don’t reside[KA1]  to take advantage of cheaper rates.

Reduce false positives with advanced linking and matching

Access to data from various sources is key to painting a picture of a subject. But critical decisions often can’t wait for the amount of legwork needed to filter and interpret large and overwhelming amounts of data.

An organization’s data sources could also be outdated or non-actionable in other ways, resulting in inefficiency, blind leads or false positives during investigations. The TLOxp® platform, part of the TransUnion TruLookup™ solution, quickly connects the dots between seemingly unassociated pieces of information in seconds, helping investigators wade through big data to get valuable, actionable insights.

TruLookup’s advanced linking and matching algorithms deliver a robust profile of people and businesses — identifying patterns and relationships between individuals and their relatives, associates, assets, businesses and locations.

Investigators can search for a subject’s connections through a wide range of datasets, including professional associations, license registrations, criminal records, social media profiles, relatives, associates and neighbors — while eliminating multiple searches and investigative dead ends.

Gain new insights

A single Comprehensive Report from TLOxp reduces hours, days and weeks of manual investigation and organization to seconds. But while unprecedented access to information about subjects is often quite beneficial, it can also be daunting for investigators to quickly get to the tidbits that matter. By rapidly linking and prioritizing actionable insights, TruLookup delivers the information needed for faster due diligence and investigations.

TruLookup’s Relationship Mapping allows investigators to instantly evaluate several individuals simultaneously. Comparing all public, private and business data on investigative targets, the tool helps fill in gaps and highlights interrelations. Relationship Mapping has provided investigators the key break in many cases where crucial details could have otherwise been missed.

TruLookup’s Social Media Report provides immediate access to all public-facing social media and web data. With a single search, investigators can see posts, videos and photos, as well as information from ecommerce sites, dating sites, music and more that can support and improve investigations, research, due diligence and risk assessments.

Explore TruLookup Investigate and Alert to learn how users can conduct faster due diligence and issue resolution with actionable intelligence on people, assets and relationships.