FBI Name Check Process
http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress03/garrity071003.htm
FBI Name Check Process
It may be helpful to the Committee to follow along with Attachment B, a flow chart of the FBI visa name check work process. Consular officers worldwide determine whether a visa request falls into one of the special visa categories requiring additional scrutiny. Two of these categories are Visa Condor, relevant to certain individuals who are from designated countries and who satisfy additional criteria which may make them worthy of additional scrutiny, and Visa Mantis, relevant to certain individuals who will have access during their visit to American special technologies. The consular officer will submit their name check requests by cable, simultaneously to both the FBI and State Department headquarters.
In the next step of the process, the FBI communications center forwards the batches of names to be checked electronically to the name check program. The name is electronically checked against the FBI Universal Indices (UNI). The searches seek all instances of the individual's name and close date of birth, whether a main file name or reference. By way of explanation, a main file name is that of an individual who is, himself, the subject of an FBI investigation, whereas a reference is someone whose name appears in an FBI investigation. References may be associates, witnesses, conspirators, or a myriad of other reasons may exist to explain why an FBI Agent believed it important to index a particular name in an investigation for later recovery. The names are searched in a multitude of combinations, switching the order of first, last, middle names, as well as combinations with just the first and last, first and middle, and so on. It also searches different phonetic spelling variations of the names, especially important considering that many names in our indices have been transliterated from a language other than English.
If there is a match with a name in a FBI record, it is designated as a "Hit", meaning that the system has stopped on a possible match with the name being checked, but now a human being must review the file or indices entry to further refine the names "Hit" on. If the search comes up with a name and birth date match, it is designated an "Ident." An "Ident" is usually easier to resolve.
Resolution Rate
Approximately 85% of name checks are electronically returned as having "No Record" within 72 hours. A "No Record" indicates that the FBI's Central Records System contains no identifiable information regarding to this individual. By agreement with State, partially due to our concern about the time factors in approving most visa requests, a No Record equates to a No Objection to the issuance of a visa. The substantive investigative divisions in the FBI, (i.e., Counterterrorism Division (CTD), Counterintelligence Division (CD), Criminal Investigative Division (CID) and the Cyber Division (CyD)) do not review visa requests where there is no record of the individual. Duplicate submissions (i.e., identically spelled names with identical dates of birth submitted within the last 120 days) are not checked and the duplicate findings are returned to State.
Because a name and birth date are not sufficient to positively correlate the file with an individual, additional review is required. A secondary manual name search usually identifies an additional 10% of the requests as having a "No Record", for a 95% overall "No Record" response rate. This is usually accomplished within a week of the request. The remaining 5% are identified as possibly being the subject of an FBI record. The FBI record must now be retrieved and reviewed. If the records were electronically uploaded into the FBI Automated Case Support (ACS) electronic recordkeeping system, it can be viewed quickly. If not, the relevant information must be retrieved from the existing paper record. Review of this information will determine whether the information is identified with the subject of the request. If not, the request is closed as a "No Record."
The information in the file is reviewed for possible derogatory information. Less than 1% of the requests are identified with an individual with possible derogatory information. These requests are forwarded to the appropriate FBI investigative division for further analysis. If the investigative division determines there is no objection to the visa request, the request is returned to the name check dissemination desk for forwarding to the State Department. If there is an FBI objection to the visa request, the investigative division will prepare a written Security Advisory Opinion (SAO) and forward it to the State Department. In reviewing these visa requests, the FBI has identified individuals attempting to enter the United States who are of serious concern to the FBI.
