Telephone call data records can contain information and insights into investigations of crucial importance. By analysing raw telephone data, it is possible to develop an appreciation of the hierarchy of a criminal organisation, identify potential targets, understand relationships between individuals and substantiate associations between known targets, or provide evidence suggesting the existence of a criminal network. Consequently, the analysis of high volume telephone call records has increasingly become a requirement of modern investigations.

i2 PatternTracer provides analysts with a powerful and efficient analytical solution, which can rapidly analyse tens of thousands of call data records, to identify call clusters and uncover key players in an investigation. PatternTracer utilises a proprietary algorithm to automatically find repeating patterns in call records, regardless of any change in the order of calls, or if some calls are occasionally absent from a pattern.

PatternTracer is an extension to i2 Analyst's Notebook, displaying results as Analyst's Notebook association and timeline charts. Once repeating groups of calls have been identified, you can therefore make use of the additional analysis functionality provided in this application. Results can then be shared and distributed freely to colleagues using i2 ChartReader™.

With PatternTracer you can:

• Replace manually intensive methods of pattern-finding within call data with a simple, fast, automated solution.
  
  
• Maximise the value of even a single phone billing by identifying the most likely targets from the patterns of calls.
  
  
• Identify possible chains of communication within a group.
  
  
• Highlight the existence of unknown players or communication channels.
  
  
• Future incidents may be predicted more accurately by highlighting all repeating call patterns in historic call data. This enables a proactive approach to preventing the recurrence of criminal activity.
  
  
• PatternTracer is vital to prioritising your requests for further data. It enables you to focus on the billing data you require and so reduces the quantity and cost of requests made to service providers.
  
  
• Rapid pattern discovery can enable managers to make informed decisions about where to commit resources for the next phase of an investigation.
  
  
• PatternTracer can quickly help identify potential members of a group or network, its organisational hierarchy, the relationships between individuals involved and any potential areas of weakness in the network being targeted. The results help identify the cycles in a criminal process and provide analytical input to the prioritisation of investigative resource.
  
  
• Reduced cost of ownership for IT departments thanks to MSI deployment.

• PatternTracer provides flexible presentation of results – view pattern instances over time using a timeline or a network view of the patterns using an association chart.
  
  
• Charts produced by PatternTracer can be analysed and annotated in exactly the same way as any other chart, eliminating the need to learn a new application.
  
  
• PatternTracer allows you to find patterns in new data gathered as the investigation progresses so that future activity can be focused and your resources optimised.
  
  
• PatternTracer can import up to 100,000 call records from text data files identifying phone numbers in volumes of data which would be unmanageable with manual methods.