The Recovery Board should look to leverage cutting edge tools that provide "Non-Obvious Relationshiop" capabiltiies designed specifically for reducing fraud and waste — These tools will help the Board identify "Who’s Who, and Who Know’s Who" with a high degree of precision.
In many of the conversations that we at IBM are having across Federal Agencies and State & Local government, leaders are telling us they are facing intensifying fraud challenges that are fast outstripping their capabilty to respond.
While the the types of fraud are wide and varied, two examples are — 1) one individual of business entity submitting the same grant proposal multiple times, across multiple agencies, using he same or slightly different indentification attributes, and 2) The proposal "reviewer/approver" sharing the same address, phone number or other identifying information with the "proposer".
The good news is that the Recovery Board will be collecting an granular level of data on who is actually recieving Recovery Act investments, and how the dollars will be spent. In this level of data lies the opportunity for the board to develop a capability for "Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness" or NORA. This capability would provide the Identity & Relationship resolution — spotting common or similar addresses, phone numbers, etc, across multiple entities and identities — thus allowing them to eliminate double dipping or conflicts of interest.
Why is it important?
Given the unprecedented level of investment the Recovery Act wiull bring to bear, it also presents the Board and the taxpayer with the potential for an unprecedented level of Fraud and Waste. If only 1% of the investment is lost to fraud — a low number given historical averages for government programs — the taxpayer will lose close to $8B to fraud.
The capability for "Non Obvious Relationship Awareness" now exists, and is currently being used across the Federal Gov’t in both social service and DHS/DOD agencies.
IBM provides these capabilities as a component of its "InfoSphere" suite, through its InfoSphere Entity Analytics Solutions (EAS) InfoSphere is an industry unique, unified platform for delivering trusted information.
IBM acquire NORA capability thrugh the acquisition of two small, best of breed SW companues.
As a part of this platform, can leverage the same tools it would use for data quality, consistency and accuracy to reduce fraud. This extends the value proposition of any investment in these tools.
