An organisation may hold many records about the same real-world subject. Entity resolution determines which records refer to the same person, company, vehicle, device, or location while preserving uncertainty and evidence.
Define the entity and the use case
Resolution quality is contextual. Matching customers for service may tolerate different uncertainty than identifying counterparties for risk. Establish the entity types, required attributes, decision consequences, and acceptable false-match trade-off.
Combine deterministic and probabilistic evidence
Exact identifiers are useful but rarely sufficient. Strong systems standardise fields, compare names and addresses, account for missing values, weight evidence, and use relationships or behaviour without turning a weak similarity into certainty.
Make identity decisions explainable
Retain the records, comparisons, scores, rules, versions, and stewardship actions behind every resolved entity. Teams need to understand why records were joined, separated, or sent for review.
Strong technology begins with the complete operating context. Connect the disciplines early, validate against real constraints, and design for the lifecycle—not merely the launch.