IInsert Classification Here

1

2014 Data Mining Report
2

Table of Contents

PART I: INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................3

Scope................................................................................................................................................3

Reporting Requirement....................................................................................................................3

Report Content.................................................................................................................................3

PART II: NEW ACTIVITIES......................................................................................................................4

PART III: UPDATES ON PREVIOUSLY REPORTED ACTIVITIES .....................................................4

National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Threat Analysis...........................................................4

Intelligence Advanced Research Project Activity (IARPA)............................................................4

Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination (KDD) Program...............................................4

Automated Low–level Analysis and Description of Diverse Intelligence Video 

(ALADDIN Video) Program..............................................................................................4

Security and Privacy Assurance (SPAR) Program. ............................................................5

PART IV: PROTECTION OF PRIVACY AND CIVIL LIBERITES ........................................................5
3

PART I: INTRODUCTION

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) provides this report pursuant to 

Section 804 of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, entitled The 

Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007 (Public Law 110–53). 

Scope

This report covers the activities of all ODNI components from January 1, 2014 through 

December 31, 2014. Constituent elements of the Intelligence Community (IC) will report their activities 

to Congress through their own departments or agencies.

Reporting Requirement

The Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007 requires that, each year “the head of 

each department or agency of the Federal Government that is engaged in an activity to use or develop data 

mining shall submit a report to Congress on all such activities of the department or agency.”

1

The Act defines “data mining” as “a program involving pattern-based queries, searches or other 

analyses of one of more electronic databases, where—

A. a department or agency of the Federal Government, or a non-Federal entity acting on behalf 

of the Federal Government, is conducting the queries, searches, or other analyses to discover 

or locate a predictive pattern or anomaly indicative of terrorist or criminal activity on the 

part of any individual or individuals;

B. the queries, searches, or other analyses are not subject-based and do not use personal 

identifiers of a specific individual, or inputs associated with a specific individual or group of 

individuals, to retrieve information from the database or databases;2and

C. the purpose of the queries, searches, or other analyses is not solely— (i) the detection of 

fraud, waste, or abuse in a Government agency or program; or (ii) the security of a 

Government computer system.”

3

Report Content

In recent years, we have followed a format that we believe enhances clarity and readability. 

Specifically, Part II of the report describes activities that meet the definition of “data mining” under the 

Act as well as programs that meet some, but not all, of the criteria defining “data mining.” We report the 

latter category of activities in the interest of transparency. Part III provides updates on programs included 

in the prior year’s report. Part IV of this report provides an overview of the Privacy and Civil Liberties 

infrastructure within which ODNI conducts its activities.

 

1 42 U.S.C. § 2000ee-3(c)(1).

2 As stated in prior reports, certain analytic tools and techniques, such as link-analysis tools, rely on “personal 

identifiers of a specific individual, or inputs associated with a specific individual or group of individuals,” such as a 

known or suspected terrorist, or other subject of foreign intelligence interest, and use various methods to uncover 

links or relationships between the known subject and potential associates or other persons with whom that subject 

has a “link” (a contact or relationship). Such tools and techniques are not considered to meet the “data mining” 

definition of the Act.

3 42 U.S.C. § 2000ee-3(b)(1).
4

PART II: NEW ACTIVITIES

The ODNI has undertaken no new reportable activities in the current report period. 

PART III: UPDATES ON PREVIOUSLY REPORTED ACTIVITIES

As previously discussed, this section provides updates on programs that were described in last 

year’s report.

National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Threat Analysis

The NCTC continues to conduct “threat analyses” as described in the 2013 ODNI Data Mining 

Report. As noted in the 2013 report, this is an analytic technique to narrow the pool of information within 

NCTC databases that analysts will assess in response to specific threat reports. This technique does not 

meet all of the statutorily defined criteria for data mining, but has been reported in the interest of 

transparency.

Intelligence Advanced Research Project Activity (IARPA)

IARPA continues to invest in high risk/high payoff research programs that have the potential to 

provide the United States with overwhelming intelligence advantage over future adversaries. As an 

organization that only funds scientific research, IARPA does not use, nor does it expect to make use of, 

data mining technology for its own purposes. IARPA programs are by nature experimental and designed 

to produce new capabilities, such as those described here. 

Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination (KDD) Program 

The KDD program began in 2009 and completed its fourth and final period in December 2014. 

KDD tackled two significant technical areas: (1) how to quickly understand novel data sets so that the 

contents can be correctly integrated with data sets that are already in use (this is termed “alignment”); and 

(2) how to construct automatic analysis tools that are able to work effectively across multiple aligned data 

sets. The KDD program created and evaluated a variety of technologies, a number of which have been 

determined useful in settings across the IC.

Automated Low–level Analysis and Description of Diverse Intelligence Video (ALADDIN 

Video) Program

The ALADDIN Video scientific research program completed its fourth round of testing in the 

Fall 2014. The objective of the ALADDIN Video program is to enable analysts to query large video data 

sets to quickly and reliably locate those video clips that show a specific type of event, thus automating a 

triage process that is currently performed manually for the most part. Although not “data mining,” 

technologies that result from ALADDIN Video research could potentially be applied by operational 

organizations to support capabilities that involve pattern recognition.

ALADDIN Video research addressed three significant technical areas: (1) high-speed processing 

of large numbers of video clips to extract information needed to support queries about each clip’s 

contents; (2) generation of effective queries from small sets of example video clips and a textual 

description; and (3) robust query processing that identifies the clips of interest and summarizes the 

rationale for their selection. ALADDIN Video research results will be evaluated by IARPA and the 

National Institute for Standards and Technology. 
5

Security and Privacy Assurance (SPAR) Program

The SPAR program completed its second and final phase of research in June 2014, building on 

prior successes in the area of distributed private information retrieval (PIR). As discussed in the 2009 and 

2010 ODNI Data Mining Reports, PIR protocols permit an entity to query a cooperating data provider and 

retrieve only the records that match the query without the provider learning what query was posed or what 

results were returned. 

The final phase of SPAR involved research in three technical areas: (1) development of protocols 

ensuring privacy and security compliance even in the context of a “private” query; (2) implementation of 

fully homomorphic encryption in the absence of any third parties; and (3) application of PIR to 

publish/subscribe systems.

In September 2014, IARPA began a SPAR pilot project to demonstrate the utility of the protocols 

in real use cases within the IC. The pilot project will implement SPAR database query protocols and 

SPAR publish-subscribe protocols in a classified network with real data. The pilot project is expected to 

be complete by Fall 2015.

SPAR protocols have the potential to enable the IC to access specific records without having to 

disclose classified data and without accessing, learning, ingesting, or retaining any private information 

about non-relevant persons. By satisfying security and privacy concerns, the technology could enable

enhanced cooperative information sharing across the IC and with other parts of the Federal Government 

and the private sector.

(U) PART IV: PROTECTION OF PRIVACY AND CIVIL LIBERITES 

The ODNI Civil Liberties and Privacy Office (CLPO) works closely with the ODNI Office of 

General Counsel, ODNI components, and the IC elements to ensure appropriate legal, privacy, and civil 

liberties safeguards are incorporated into policies, processes, and procedures that support the intelligence 

mission. The CLPO is led by the Civil Liberties Protection Officer, a position established by the 

Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-458). The duties of this 

Officer are set forth in that Act, and include: ensuring that the protection of civil liberties and privacy is 

appropriately incorporated in the policies of the ODNI and the IC; overseeing compliance by the ODNI 

with legal requirements relating to civil liberties and privacy; reviewing complaints about potential abuses 

of privacy and civil liberties in ODNI programs and activities; and ensuring that technologies sustain, and 

do not erode, privacy protections relating to the use, collection, and disclosure of personal information. 

Before using any tool or technology in an operational setting, the use of the tool or technology would 

need to be examined pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 12333, the Privacy Act of 1974, and other 

applicable requirements to determine how the tool could be used consistent with the framework for 

protecting United States Person (USP) information. 

The IC has in place a protective infrastructure built in principal part on a core set of USP rules 

derived from EO 12333. This EO requires each IC element to maintain procedures, approved by the 

Attorney General, governing the collection, retention, and dissemination of USP information. These 

procedures limit the type of information that may be collected, retained, or disseminated to the categories 

listed in part 2.3 of the EO. Each IC element’s Attorney General-approved USP guidance is interpreted, 

applied, and overseen by that element’s Office of General Counsel, Office of Inspector General, and other 

compliance offices as appropriate. Violations are reported to the Intelligence Oversight Board of the 

President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. In addition to EO 12333, IC elements are subject to the 

requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974, which protects information about U.S. citizens and permanent 

resident aliens that a government agency maintains and retrieves by name or unique identifier. Going 
6

forward, the IC will also conform to policies and procedures under Presidential Policy Directive 28, 

relating to protections for all personal information contained in signals intelligence.

The IC’s privacy and civil liberties protective infrastructure is bolstered also by guidance and 

directives issued by the Office of Management and Budget, including memoranda regarding the reporting 

of and response to incidents involving personally identifiable information and the minimization of social 

security numbers.

Finally, the IC has developed and established two sets of principles that have been adopted as 

“foundational” to the IC mission: The Principles of Professional Ethics for the IC, and The Principles of 

Intelligence Transparency for the IC. These two sets of principles inform the IC’s approaches to applying 

appropriate protections for the types of activities described in this report.