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Continuous Vetting & Entity Resolution

What is Continuous Vetting

Continuous vetting refers to the ongoing process of checking and verifying the identities and activities of entities (like people or organizations) to reduce risk. Instead of periodic checks, continuous vetting monitors entities in real time for any changes or suspicious activities. Watch the video below as Senzing CEO Jeff Jonas and Head of Sales Will Layton discuss how continuous vetting enables you to keep an eye on how risk or opportunity is changing in real time.

Continuous vetting is important because many organizations only evaluate risk when onboarding, and then, sometimes, periodically every year or more. This leaves them exposed to new threats and risk in the intervals between periodic re-evaluations. One way to reduce this risk is by automatically re-evaluating risk as new data is received.

Continuous Vetting Detects Risk in Real Time

Continuous vetting is especially important if you’re trying to catch clever bad actors, because you need to notice and immediately act on any relevant new data. A new piece of information could change your evaluation of an entity in an instant, whether that’s one of your employees, a vendor in your supply chain, a vehicle or whatever.

To perform continuous vetting, you need an entity resolution system that is truly real time. This means continuously ingesting, resolving, querying and self-correcting streaming data as it is received. Senzing® entity resolution enables you to add continuous vetting capabilities quickly and easily to better detect risk.

Edited Video Transcript

Timestamps
0:00 Introduction – What Is Continuous Vetting?
0:34 Why Continuous Vetting Is Important
0:50 Continuous Vetting for People, Companies and Their Hierarchies, Supply Chains, Vessels
1:12 Continuous Vetting for Supply Chains
1:34 Make Sense of Info as Fast as You Observe It

Will: We want to talk about continuous vetting. So, Jeff, let’s start off the simple way – what is continuous vetting?

Jeff: Today, organizations establish the risk for something and then they say yes or no. And then maybe never, or maybe once every five years, they look again and go, uh oh, it’s not green anymore, it’s red. Well, it didn’t just turn red when you looked five years later. Continuous vetting is keeping an eye on how risk or opportunity is changing in real time.

0:34 Why Continuous Vetting Is Important

Will: And why is this a big important step in this market to be able to do continuous vetting?

Jeff: When it comes to catching clever bad actors, you want to notice them earlier in time. You want to find them at the soonest moment in time that they’re catchable.

0:50 Continuous Vetting for People, Companies and Their Hierarchies, Supply Chains, Vessels

Will: So, it applies to vetting people, but does it stop there? Can you vet other entities, like companies and other things? Do you want to continuously vet everything that you can resolve?

Jeff: Yes, your supply chains, your people, people connected to companies, hierarchies of companies… So, you can vet people and companies, vessels and planes; you could even vet asteroids.

1:12 Continuous Vetting for Supply Chains

Will: With the case of supply chain, you’ve got a set of companies you’re doing business with, and then, all of a sudden, you get a bad piece of data? Say you get some data that is derogatory towards a company, maybe some adverse media or something. That’s a great example where maybe somebody needs to change how they’re doing business (Know Your Business KYB) based on the risk score of that supplier.

1:34 Make Sense of Information as Fast as You Observe It

Jeff: Indeed, what you want to be able to do is make sense of information as fast as you’re observing it. So, when your organization observes something, like when a new piece of data becomes available to it, you want to be able to determine if that new piece of information might change your mind about how you think about something, whether that’s one of your employees, a vendor in your supply chain, a vehicle or whatever.

Continuous Vetting FAQ

What is continuous vetting?

Continuous vetting is the ongoing process of checking and verifying the identities and activities of entities, such as people or organizations, to reduce risk. Instead of periodic checks, continuous vetting monitors entities in real time for any changes or suspicious activities. As Senzing CEO Jeff Jonas describes it, continuous vetting is keeping an eye on how risk or opportunity is changing in real time, rather than establishing risk once and looking again years later.

How does continuous vetting work?

Continuous vetting works by automatically re-evaluating risk as new data is received, instead of waiting for the next scheduled review. A new piece of information could change your evaluation of an entity in an instant, whether that is one of your employees, a vendor in your supply chain, or a vehicle. To perform it, you need an entity resolution system that is truly real time, meaning it continuously ingests, resolves, queries and self-corrects streaming data as it is received.

How is continuous vetting different from periodic checks?

Continuous vetting monitors entities in real time instead of relying on periodic checks. Many organizations only evaluate risk when onboarding and then, sometimes, periodically every year or more, which leaves them exposed to new threats and risk in the intervals between periodic re-evaluations. With continuous vetting, a change in risk is noticed when it happens, not at the next scheduled look, because the organization re-evaluates risk automatically as each new piece of data arrives.

How does entity resolution support continuous vetting?

Entity resolution supports continuous vetting by making sense of information as fast as the organization observes it. To perform continuous vetting you need an entity resolution system that is truly real time, continuously ingesting, resolving, querying and self-correcting streaming data as it is received, so each new piece of data can immediately change how you think about an employee, a supplier or a vessel. Senzing entity resolution lets you add continuous vetting capabilities quickly and easily to better detect risk, and lists perpetual vetting among its use cases.

What data sources does continuous vetting use?

Continuous vetting uses whatever new data the organization observes about the entities it has already vetted, for example adverse media about a supplier that may change how it does business with that company. In the Senzing pattern, population records such as employees, applicants, vendors, and customers and watchlist records such as OFAC SDN, EU Consolidated, PEP lists, and internal watchlists are loaded as separate data sources into the same repository. New or updated watchlist data is then streamed through to detect changes in match status.