1.4 Investigative Data Warehousing

Data warehousing is the practice of compiling transactional data with lifestyle demographics for constructing composites of customers and then decomposing them via segmentation reports and data mining techniques to extract profiles or "views" of who they are and what they value. Data warehouse techniques have been practiced for a decade in private industry. These same techniques so far have not been applied to criminal detection and security deterrence; however, they well could be.

Using the same approach, behavioral data from such diverse sources as the Internet (clickstream data captured by Internet mechanisms, such as cookies, invisible graphics, registration forms); demographics from data providers, such as ChoicePoint, CACI, Experian, Acxiom, DataQuick; and utility and telecom usage data, coupled with criminal data, could be used to construct composites representing views of perpetrators, enabling the analysis of similarities and traits, which through data mining could yield predictive models for investigators and analysts. As with private industry, better views of perpetrators could be developed, enabling the detection and prevention of criminal and terrorist activity.