System and method for disambiguating non-unique identifiers using information obtained from disparate communication channels

A method for identifying a real-world entity (RWE) associated with an information object (IO), the method comprising:

• retrieving IO data associated with the IO, the IO data including at least one of social data, spatial data, temporal data and logical data;
• retrieving RWE data for each of a plurality of RWEs, the RWE data including at least one of social data, spatial data, temporal data and logical data;
• comparing the RWE data and IO data;
• generating a probability for each of the plurality of RWEs based on results of the comparing operation;
• and
• selecting, based on the generated probabilities, at least one first RWE as the RWE associated with the IO.

A system that disambiguates non-unique entity identifiers comprising:

• a correlation engine connected via at least one communication network to a plurality of computing devices transmitting information objects (IOs) over the at least one communication network;
• computer-readable media connected to the correlation engine storing at least one of social data, spatial data, temporal data and logical data associated with a plurality of real-world entities (RWEs);
• wherein the correlation engine, based on the detection of a first IO containing a non-unique entity identifier, identifies one or more relationships between the first IO and the plurality of RWEs;
• and
• a disambiguation engine that generates a probability for each of the plurality of RWEs based on the identified relationships, selects one of the plurality of RWEs as being identified by the non-unique entity identifier based on the probabilities generated, and associates the first IO with the selected one of the plurality of RWEs via associating a unique network identifier for the selected one of the plurality of RWEs with the first IO.