A link is a relationship between entities. There can be only one link between two entities.
There are three types of links:
Know links represent a know type relationship. Two entities have a Know link when at least one of the two has the other in his/her address book.
A Know link can be directional or bi-directional.
Peer links indicate that there was a contact between the two entities.
Two entities that represent people have a Peer link when there was a direct communication between the two entities (i.e.: phone call, chat). The relationship can be directional and bi-directional.
An entity that represents a person and one that represents a place have a Peer link when the person was in that place (physical or on the web). The relationship is only directional: from the entity that represents a person to the one that represents a place.
Peer links represent a stronger relationship than know links, thus they replace any Know link between the entities.
The analyst manages links so they represent the evolution of the investigation, thus:
Identity links represent a suggestion of an identity relationship between two entities that represent people. This type of link is automatically created by the system when the two entities share at least one identification (i.e.: phone number).
Identity links do not have directions.
The analyst must decide the reason for identity links and how to act accordingly:
Links are the result of an automatic or manual process completed at a certain time. However, the time the link is created, meaning when the first relationship was formed between entities, is only logged for Peer links automatically created by the system.
This way, an analysis period can be selected to see when certain relationships were created.
For the other links, once they are created (automatically or manually) they are considered as created at the beginning by the system.
RCS9.4 | User's Guide | © COPYRIGHT 2014