Reservations company hopes technology can help identify suspected terrorists

Data analysis software backed by the CIA and used by some casinos to catch gambling cheats is now being tested for its potential to detect suspected terrorists and their associates when they make airline, hotel or rental-car reservations. One of the four companies that operate major computerized reservations and global distribution systems has spent the past three months installing the software, which searches transaction data for nonobvious relationships. A working prototype of the application was due to be completed in late December, according to an IT manager at the reservations company. The software, developed by Las Vegas-based Systems Research & Development Inc. (SRD), is supposed to clean up incorrectly entered data and search for possible connections between airline passengers and suspected terrorists on government watch lists. SRD said it can check a passenger's name, address, phone number and other identifying information against those of people who are believed to be terrorists. The technology can also search for close variations, such as transposed digits within a driver's license number, and detect whether a passenger lives near a suspected terrorist by using latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, SRD said. Development of the software is being partially funded by In-Q-Tel Inc., an Arlington, Va.-based private-sector venture capital firm that the CIA set up in 1999. The screening application generally runs in batch mode, said Timothy O'Neil-Dunne, a consultant at Tampa, Fla.-based T2Impact Ltd., which was hired by SRD to help with the ongoing installation. But for bookings made within 48 hours of a flight or a hotel stay, the software spools out customer records from IBM mainframe-based reservations systems and analyzes the data in near real time, he said.