What Identity Resolution Actually Is

Identity resolution is not a background check. It is the process of proving that a record, a name, or an entity is the same person or organization under investigation. This course establishes that discipline from the ground up.

Where Investigations Go Wrong

Same-name confusion, shared addresses, and misattributed records are among the most common and most consequential errors in investigative work. You will see exactly how they enter the record and how they are caught.

Standard That Protects Your Conclusions

Every identity claim in a professional investigation must meet a standard of proof. This course shows you what that standard looks like, why it matters, and how to apply it consistently across every engagement.

About the course

Two people share a name. A record points to the wrong address. An entity looks connected to your subject and turns out to belong to someone else entirely. Misidentification is one of the quietest ways an investigation goes wrong, and it carries all the way through to the work product, where it becomes the firm's exposure. This free executive brief is your entry into the discipline of identity resolution. In about an hour, you will see how investigators establish that a record belongs to the person under investigation, how same-name confusion gets resolved, and why an identity claim has to meet the same standard of proof the rest of the investigation is held to. This Foundations course is built for investigators, due diligence professionals, intelligence analysts, and the executives who rely on their findings. You need no background in identity resolution to begin. You will leave with a clear picture of the discipline and a working sense of where it protects your conclusions.

Learn how investigators verify that a record belongs to the right person before it enters the work product.

Understand how same-name confusion and overlapping entity data distort investigations and how to resolve them.

Walk away with a clear, applicable standard for identity claims that holds up under legal and analytical scrutiny.

Sean Mahon

A senior intelligence professional with over 20 years of experience across military intelligence, KYC/AML compliance, open-source intelligence instruction, and forensic due diligence. He has led analytical teams in regulated, high-stakes environments where incomplete or misattributed information carries direct operational and legal consequence. He is the founder of The Collective Risk Intelligence, a specialized firm delivering structured, evidence-based due diligence and investigative analysis for law firms, private equity, investment firms, and high-net-worth individuals. His work sits at the intersection of investigative intelligence, identity verification, and litigation support . All environments where the standard of proof is not negotiable. This course draws directly from the analytical methodology applied in real engagements, not theory, not frameworks built in a classroom.

Curriculum

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    1. (Included in full purchase)

Begin Where Every Investigation Begins.

Identity Resolution Foundations is free and takes about an hour. Enroll now, and put the discipline to work on your next case file.