How AI technology enables transparency
Government agencies, inundated with an ever-increasing amount of data, lack the necessary resources with which to efficiently collect, analyze, and manage that data. The end result is a system of data silos—pockets of information within an agency, team, or department that are inaccessible or unknown across channels. This lack of integration leads to limited analysis and insight.
When faced with massive amounts of unconsolidated and decentralized data, government agencies just can’t keep up, which makes them more susceptible to human error, security breaches, and privacy events. It also leaves them susceptible to those seeking to exploit vulnerabilities for their own benefit.
Issues like these are the primary reasons why more and more governments are turning to digital transformation to drive better transparency. Cloud-based and digital technologies provide a better path forward. The cloud provides ways to securely analyze and visualize vast quantities of data. It can be used to map and identify known patterns of behavior and unreported connections among suppliers, even when those suppliers have taken steps to obscure their history and background.
With the emergence of such modern technologies, Microsoft ACTS, our Advanced Cloud Transparency Services initiative, has focused on mobilizing the power of data and technology in ways that enable governments to better navigate their growing sea of data. Using AI, machine learning, and other scalable technologies, we work with partners and governments to design solutions that help identify data patterns and relationships and flag suspicious transactions without requiring additional overhead. This ability to proactively spot (and stop) suspicious activity can be transformative for governments.
Empowering governments to advance digital transformation
Many agencies today are in different stages of their digital transformation journey. We focus on meeting governments where they are in their evolution.
Using today’s advanced systems, we’ve worked with governments to develop AI-enabled dashboards capable of quickly and accurately analyzing billions of rows of data. This capability helps governments locate “red flags” and move quickly to resolve issues. Solutions like these offer great potential, like using an AI-assisted risk score calculator on a custom dashboard so investigators can uncover potential corruption and investigate it.
“Many government agencies have enormous amounts of data dispersed across different storage methods,” says Norman Hodne, program director, Microsoft ACTS. “Using technologies like machine learning, we develop solutions that can enable them to consolidate and analyze information, so the data they’re using is more accurate, safer, and easier to analyze.”
These digital solutions also help with timing. AI and machine learning capabilities analyze data in real time, efficiently detecting data anomalies that would otherwise be difficult to discover. They’re also self-educating, using previous insight to train themselves to better recognize red flags that signal suspicious activity. This exponential growth in knowledge is useful in exposing criminals and their ever-evolving types of corruption.
“Without bringing transparency into this kind of data, a lot of money will get dispersed elsewhere—where it’s not meant to be,” Hodne says. “And that’s where corruption happens, and that’s where risk happens.”
For government agencies, moving from a dispersed data platform to one that enables data consolidation is a major first step in gaining control of information and making transparency a reality. ACTS will continue its mission to support governments in finding proactive ways to access and analyze data to uncover data anomalies and deter corruption.