Searching for Security

Sorting though data collected by intelligence agencies could be the next big growth area for technology companies.
By Priya Ganapati
November 18, 2005

The Tower of Babel built by government snoops has sparked demand for entrepreneurs who can help make sense of it all, according to a report released Friday.

Government agencies and corporations are spending nearly $1 billion a year to sort, contextualize, and analyze data in one of the most important segments of homeland security, according to C.E. Unterberg, Towbin (CEUT), a New York-based consultancy in technology and global security sectors.

Advanced data analytics, which looks for useful intelligence in videotapes, voice messages, and text, is expected to grow at 20 percent over the next five years and become a $2-billion market by 2009, according to CEUT and the Chesapeake Innovation Center, a business accelerator for homeland and national security.

“There is an overload of data spearheaded by FBI and intelligence agencies, collecting information on terrorist activities,” said Scott Greiper, senior research analyst, global security at CEUT. “The challenge is that the data collection efforts are overwhelming the ability to analyze the data and get actionable intelligence.”

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