Fuzzy Name Search for the CSL API
pyram...@gmail.com
Good afternoon,
The International Trade Administration (ITA) has now integrated Fuzzy Name Search into the Consolidated Screening List (CSL) API.
What is that? you may ask. Fuzzy Name Search enables you to search the CSL without knowing the exact spelling of an entity’s name. By setting Fuzzy Name to On, the CSL returns a “score” for all results that exactly match or nearly match the name that is searched. It works by expanding queries to include results that are fuzzily similar to the given term, where similarity is defined by distance - the number of changes required to get from one term to another.
The following example contains terms with a distance of 1. Valid transformation types are given in parenthesis.
star => stir (substitution)
star => stars (insertion)
star => tar (deletion)
star => tsar (transposition)
This notion of distance between strings is defined formally as Damerau–Levenshtein distance.
It may sound trivial but it actually makes the CSL API much more robust. It is particularly helpful when searching for names on the CSL that have been transliterated into English from non-Romance languages.
This was in direct response to requests from our data customers and from export compliance experts. We worked with our customers to address many use cases and now provide results that are very usable. Big win for all.
Enjoy!
Stuart
Stuart Ridgway, PMP
International Trade
Administration
Office of the CIO