Pattern-of-life analysis is a method of

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...

that documents or understands the habits of a person or population. Motives may include

security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercion). Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be persons and social groups, objects and institutions, ecosystems, or any other entity or ...

profit Profit may refer to: Business and law * Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market * Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit * Profit (real property), a nonpossessory inter ...

, scientific research, regular censuses, and

traffic analysis Traffic analysis is the process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in communication. It can be performed even when the messages are encrypted. In general, the greater the number of messages observ ...

. The data of interest may reflect anything in a person or persons' life: their travels, purchases, internet browsing habits, choices, and so forth. The data is used to predict a subject's future action or to detect anomalous behavior.

Notable examples

Esri's use of ArcGIS

Esri Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., doing business as Esri (), is an American Multinational corporation, multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company headquartered in Redlands, California. It is best known for ...

is an international supplier of

Geographic Information System A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and Geographic information system software, software that store, manage, Spatial analysis, analyze, edit, output, and Cartographic design, visualize Geographic data ...

(GIS) software, web GIS and

geodatabase A spatial database is a general-purpose database (usually a relational database) that has been enhanced to include spatial data that represents objects defined in a geometric space, along with tools for querying and analyzing such data. Most s ...

management applications. Esri uses the name

ArcGIS ArcGIS is a family of client, server and online geographic information system (GIS) software developed and maintained by Esri. ArcGIS was first released in 1982 as ARC/INFO, a command line-based GIS. ARC/INFO was later merged into ArcGIS De ...

to refer to its suite of GIS software products, which operate on desktop, server, and mobile platforms. The term GIS describes any

information Information is an Abstraction, abstract concept that refers to something which has the power Communication, to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the Interpretation (philosophy), interpretation (perhaps Interpretation (log ...

system that integrates, stores, edits, analyzes, shares and displays geographic information for informing

decision making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either ra ...

. With this technology, the company's goal is to unify information of a subject's life habits and their geographical whereabouts with statistics related to IED casualties in an effort to predict and prevent another IED incident from happening. In one presentation used at an Esri Federal User Conference, it states: "Exploitation of a cell's network enables a commander with the right tools to get 'Left of Boom' .e. before an IED or bomb detonates"

MARINA

MARINA A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : "related to the sea") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or cargo ...

is an NSA database and analysis toolset for intercepted Internet metadata (DNI in NSA terminology). The database stores metadata up to a year. According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden: "The Marina metadata application tracks a user's browser experience, gathers contact information/content and develops summaries of target" and " the more distinguishing features, Marina has the ability to look back on the last 365 days' worth of DNI metadata seen by the Sigint collection system, regardless whether or not it was tasked for collection." mphasis in original NSA document.The stored metadata is mainly used for pattern-of-life analysis. US persons are not exempt because metadata is not considered data by US law (section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act). MARINA's phone counterpart is

MAINWAY MAINWAY is a database maintained by the United States' National Security Agency (NSA) containing metadata for hundreds of billions of telephone calls made through the largest telephone company, telephone carriers in the United States, including A ...

Wide-Area Motion Imagery

Wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) generates high-resolution images to enable tracking and recording of vehicle and pedestrian movements over city-sized areas. Pattern of life (POL) or behavior pattern describes a recurrent (e.g., normalcy) way of acting by an individual or group toward a given object or in a given situation. Usually, one has a specific POL, and this POL is repeatable. Full motion video or WAMI data with extracted tracks can be used for POL analysis.

Notable examples

Esri's use of ArcGIS

MARINA

Wide-Area Motion Imagery

See also

References

Further reading