Semi-automated knowledge discovery: identifying and profiling human trafficking

International Journal of General Systems. 2012. Vol. 41. No. 8. P. 774–804.

Poelmans J., Kuznetsov S., Ignatov D. I., Elzinga P.

We propose an iterative and human-centred knowledge discovery methodology based on formal concept analysis. The proposed approach recognizes the important role of the domain expert in mining real-world enterprise applications and makes use of specific domain knowledge, including human intelligence and domain-specific constraints. Our approach was empirically validated at the Amsterdam-Amstelland police to identify suspects and victims of human trafficking in 266,157 suspicious activity reports. Based on guidelines of the Attorney Generals of the Netherlands, we first defined multiple early warning indicators that were used to index the police reports. Using concept lattices, we revealed numerous unknown human trafficking and loverboy suspects. Indepth investigation by the police resulted in a confirmation of their involvement in illegal activities resulting in actual arrestments been made. Our human-centred approach was embedded into operational policing practice and is now successfully used on a daily basis to cope with the vastly growing amount of unstructured information.

Keywords: анализ формальных понятий, Formal Concept Analysis, semi-automated knowledge discovery, human trafficking, полуавтоматическое обнаружение знаний, незаконное перемещение людей, представление знаний, инженерия знаний, информационно-поисковые системы, методика расследования отдельных видов преступлений, банки данных