2_use_case_name: Normalization Services
3_agency: Department of Homeland Security
3_abr: DHS
4_bureau: ICE
8_topic_area: Law & Justice
10_commercial_ai: None of the above.
11_purpose_benefits: HSI utilizes artificial intelligence to enhance data accuracy and efficiency by verifying, validating, correcting, and normalizing various types of information, including addresses, phone numbers, names, and ID numbers. This process helps to eliminate data entry errors, detect intentional misidentification, and connect related information across multiple datasets, ultimately reducing the time and resources required for investigations. The machine learning-powered normalization services offered by HSI include converting ambiguous addresses into usable formats, identifying ID types from partial information, categorizing names with complex suffixes and family names, and standardizing phone numbers to the E164 format, including determining their originating county. By normalizing and improving the quality of investigative datasets, HSI is able to use more advanced tools to find correlations and leads that would have otherwise gone undetected without extensive manual effort.
12_outputs: The output includes normalized data that improves search capability during investigations. This includes normalizing data to update less well-defined addresses into usable addresses for analysis- (such as those using mile markers instead of a street number); inferring ID type based on user-provided ID value (such as distinguishing a SSN from a DL number without additional context); categorizing name parts while taking into account additional factors (including generational suffixes and multi-part family names); and validating and normalizing phone numbers to the E164 standard, including their identified county of origin.
16_dev_stage: Operation and Maintenance
17_impact_type: Neither
18_date_initiated: 6/1/2019
19_date_acq_dev_began: 10/1/2019
20_date_implemented: 4/1/2021
22_dev_method: Developed with contracting resources.
23_contract_piids: 70OCTD22FR00000002, 70OCTD22FR00000235, 70OCTD22FR00000009
24_hisp_support: No
27_public_info: No
29_contains_pii: Yes
30_saop_review: Yes
31_data_catalog: Yes
33_agency_data: Data holdings within HSI case files that require normalization (e.g. subpoenaed phone record). This includes, but is not limited to, evidentiary records containing phone numbers, names, addresses, and ID numbers.
34_data_docs: Documentation has been partially completed: Some documentation exists (detailing the composition and any statistical bias or measurement skew for training and evaluation purposes), but documentation took place within this use case’s development.
37_custom_code: Yes
38_code_access: Yes – agency has access to source code, but it is not public.
40_has_ato: Yes
41_system_name: Repository for Analytics in a Virtualized Environment
42_dev_tools_wait: Less than 6 months
43_infra_provisioned: Yes
45_compute_request: Yes
47_timely_resources: Yes
49_existing_reuse: None: This use case does not re-use any internally developed tooling or managed infrastructure from any other AI development efforts within the agency.
50_internal_review: Limited documentation for review: Some information regarding the model’s performance on specific benchmarks are available or have been shared with specific stakeholders within the agency.