Why data collaboration is vital for effective counter fraud

The following is an extract from the Clue report Counter Fraud: Navigating the Path to Prevention, based on a survey of counter fraud professionals in government, public sector and law enforcement.

For counter fraud professionals, staying ahead of entrepreneurial and agile criminals is difficult, if not impossible. According to Clue’s survey of fraud investigators, effective data and intelligence sharing is now crucial.

Respondents emphasised that effective intelligence sharing hinges on the ability to transfer data. With 50% of investigators claiming to be overwhelmed by it, building an effective culture of intelligence sharing to acquire valuable insights requires a combination of smoother compliance, and better data management and consolidation.

The case for better interoperability

Aside from access to open data programmes such as those led by National Fraud Initiative and non-profits such as Cifas, the survey highlighted an appetite for better interoperability between both internal systems and other organisations.

APIs can help secure interoperability between systems and organisations. However, implementing data sharing agreements between departments, agencies and organisations is a necessary point of focus in overcoming issues of compliance more seamlessly.

We ignore the opportunity to leverage data across the public and private sector at our peril. We need to collaborate to make this sort of criminality uneconomic.

Survey respondent

By enabling multiple systems to ‘talk’, investigators across the public and private sector can make decisions led by real-time data, providing them a better chance of keeping pace with newly emerging threats that could otherwise fall under the radar, be deprioritised or disregarded.

Outside of sharing hard data, members of the counter fraud community should also lay the groundwork for strategic partnerships through events, meetups and working groups, in turn helping to foster a wider recognition of the importance of collaboration in counter fraud.

Clue helps law enforcement agencies, corporations, public sector organisations and others detect and prevent economic crime.

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