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Machine Learning to Manage Fraud in Government Programmes

To bolster the U.S. economy during the pandemic, trillions of dollars have been allocated to COVID relief initiatives, such as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), emergency loan programs and unemployment payouts. As unfortunate as it may sound, the crisis has created serendipitous circumstances for malicious actors to siphon off federal funds through various underhanded schemes. The scourge of fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) has since shifted into hyper-drive and keeps gaining momentum.

Government administrators lack time and resources to fight fraud in ways they are accustomed to, that is, via anonymous tips, whistleblowing and manual controls. Some face budget constraints and rely on technology for vendor screening. As a result, much of agencies’ efforts are reactive and focused on the investigation after the fact rather than prevention, which minimises the chance of recovering stolen funds and does not prevent the snowball of fraud from growing.

A combo of limited human resources, rudimentary analytic tools and a lack of proactivity renders conventional fraud countermeasures in the government sector ineffective. In a coronavirus world, the fatigue of overworked personnel is fertile soil for error, not to mention that the amount of incoming data has gone far beyond the threshold of their verification capabilities.

The key to fixing the problem is to automate as many repetitive and manual tasks as possible. Thankfully, this isn’t a matter of reinventing the wheel. The capabilities of modern fraud prevention systems have been yielding positive dividends for finance, health care and e-commerce entities for quite some time.

With machine learning at its core, this technology pinpoints deviations from baseline activity that can be telltale signs of fraud. It collects data from multiple sources and processes it in real-time to establish patterns of what’s normal, instantly alerting administrators to events that stand out.

For example, the system can mine transactional data generated from the use of electronic benefit transfer cards and spot situations that exceed the range of intended applications. Automating the eligibility verification routine is another scenario where AI can help. It aggregates information from different databases to check employment history, personal assets and other details that show whether a person is eligible to receive benefits.

This technology provides several game-changing advantages over traditional fraud management methods. First of all, it can extract meaningful information from huge volumes of data that government employees can’t possibly sift through on their own. Secondly, it learns from past cases and continuously fine-tunes its algorithms to improve detection accuracy. Thirdly, it works 24/7 to ensure uninterrupted protection against foul play. The only caveat is that the system may require a certain period of human oversight, given a high chance of false positives at the early deployment stage.

With a long track record in the private sector, fraud prevention systems have matured and can help forestall FWA in government programs. Compared to billions of annual losses over fraudulent schemes, procuring tools that provide sophisticated data analytics appears to be a reasonable investment. This is a recipe for reducing human error, closing the talent gap and ramping up the rate of successful fraud detection.

Machine-learning features of these systems are particularly useful because they can automatically check massive amounts of data for signs of sketchy activity and improve their algorithms over time. It is important to understand, though, that these components are only as good as the man-made training models they originally use.

That being said, anti-fraud tools aren’t a replacement for human controls – they work in concert with traditional techniques. The automation of tedious data mining and processing allows government administrators to concentrate on preventing high-profile abuse and making important decisions.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

PARTNER

CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

PARTNER

Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

PARTNER

HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

PARTNER

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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