Here's an interesting problem.
I have an oracle database with name & address information which needs to be kept current.
We get data feeds from a number of different gov't sources, and need to figure out matches, and whether or not to update the db with the data, or if a new record needs to be created.
There isn't any sort of unique identifier that can be used to tie records together, and the data quality isn't always that good - there will always be typos, people using different names (i.e. Joe vs. Joseph), etc.
Are there any tools to help with data matching? Because of privacy regulations, we can't send the data out, so it's something we have to do in-house.
If you can't recommend tool, I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who's worked on this type of problem before as to how they solved it, or at least automated parts of it.