Posted by Crime Tech Solutions – Your source for analytics in the fight against crime and fraud.
September 7, 2015. IBM announced this week a major update to its IBM i2 Safer Planet intelligence portfolio that includes a major overhaul of the widely used Analyst’s Notebook product. The product, which has become increasingly abandoned by its user base over the past five years, is now being positioned as ‘slicker‘ than previous versions.
IBM suggests that the new version scales from one to 1,000 users and can ingest petabytes of information to visualize. (A single petabyte roughly translates to 20,000,000 four-drawer filing cabinets completely filled with text).
That’s a lot of data. Seems to me that analysts are already inundated with data… now they need more?
This all begs the question: “Where is IBM headed with this product?”
The evidence seems to point to the fact that IBM wants this suite of products to compete head-to-head with money-raising machine and media darling Palantir Technologies. If I’m IBM, that makes sense. Palantir has been eating Big Blue’s lunch for a few years now, particularly at the lucrative US Federal market level. Worse yet, for IBM i2, is the recent news of a new competitor with even more powerful technology.
If I’m a crime or fraud analyst, however, I have to view this as IBM moving further and further away from my reality.
The reality? Nobody has ever yelled “Help! I’ve been robbed. Call the petabytes of ‘slick’ data!” No, this tiring ‘big data’ discussion is not really part of the day to day work for the vast majority of analysts. Smart people using appropriate data with intuitive and flexible crime technology solutions… that’s the reality for most of us.
So, as IBM moves their market-leading tool higher and higher into the stratosphere, where does the industry turn for more practical desktop solutions with realistic pricing? For more and more customers around the world, the answer is a crime and fraud link analytics tool from Crime Tech Solutions.
No, it won’t ingest 20,000,000 four-drawer filing cabinets of data, and it’s more ‘efficient‘ than ‘slick‘. Still, the product has been around for decades as a strong competitor to Analysts Notebook, and is well-supported by a network of strategic partners around the world. Importantly, it is the only American made and supported alternative. Period. It’s also, seemingly, the last man standing in the market for efficient and cost-effective tools that can be used by real people doing their real jobs.
Tag Archives: crime technology solutions
Is "Minority Report" pure fiction?
Posted by Douglas Wood.
Journalist Raj Shekhar had an interesting article in the Times of India this week.
It’s like PreCrime, only four decades early. The “predictive policing” system seen in the Tom Cruise blockbuster Minority Report is now taking shape in Delhi. But instead of the three slime-immersed psychic “Precogs” that system relied on, Delhi Police’s crime prediction will be based on cold, hard data.
Once Enterprise Information Integration Solution or ‘EI2S’—a system that puts petabytes of information from more than a dozen crime databases at police staff’s fingertips—is ready, Delhi Police will be able to implement its ‘Crime Forecast’ plan to predict when and where criminals will strike.
The technology is not as fanciful as it seems at first and is already being tried out in many important cities, including New York, Los Angeles, London and Berlin. Officers associated with the plan say the software will analyze police data for patterns, compare it with other data from jails, courts and other crime-fighting agencies, and alert police to the likely threats. Data will be available not only on the suspects but also their likely victims.
A global tender has been floated for the project and Delhi Police is in talks with various firms for the technology.
According to the article, the system can help pre-empt many situations. For example, a violent clash between two gangs. It can identify individuals who are likely to join gangs or take to crime in an area based on the analyses of their behaviour and network. It can also curb domestic violence by identifying a pattern and predicting the next attack, the article said.
It all boils down to spotting patterns in mountains of data using tremendous computing power. A police document about the plan states that investigators should be able to perform crime series identification, crime trend identification, hot spot analysis and general analysis of criminal profiles. Link analysis will help spot common indicators of a crime by establishing associations and non obvious relationships between entities.
Using neighbourhood analysis, police will be able to understand crime events and the circumstances behind them in a small area as all the crime activity in a neighbourhood will be available for analysis. Criminal cases will be classified into multiple categories to understand what types of crime an area is prone to and the measures needed to curb them. Classification will be done through profiles of victims, suspects, localities and the modus operandi.
Another technique, called proximity analysis, will provide information about criminals, victims, witnesses and other people who are or were within a certain distance of the crime scene. By analyzing demographic and social trends, investigators will be able to understand the changes that have taken place in an area and their impact on criminality.
Network analysis will also be a part of this project to identify the important characteristics and functions of individuals within and outside a network, the network’s strengths and weaknesses and its financial and communication data.
While the system could help fight crime and rid Delhi of its ‘crime capital’ tag, it is bound to raise concerns over privacy and abuse as no predictive system can be foolproof.
Medicaid Fraud – The NAMPI Conference Wrap
Posted by Douglas Wood, Editor.
The National Association for Medicaid Program Integrity (NAMPI) wrapped up its 31st annual conference yesterday (August 12) in New Orleans with the theme “Jazzing up Program Integrity in the Big Easy.” I’m glad that the conference itself was full of cool presentations and networking events, because the temperature outside was Hot Hot Hot! (Note to self: One ‘Hurricane’ at Pat O’Briens on Bourbon Street is enough.)
50 years after President Lyndon Johnson signed into law legislation creating two new national health insurance programs – Medicare and Medicaid – the latter is the largest source of medical and health-related services in the US, providing healthcare to over 68 million Americans with a low income. As the number of enrollees continues to grow, so then does the challenge of maintaining program integrity and fighting the inevitable fraud that hurts us all.
As someone who markets technology solutions in the fight against fraud and crime, I found much of the conference to be right up my alley. As with any conference, much of the agenda was sponsored by vendors of data solutions and technology. Kudos to LexisNexis for sponsoring keynote speaker Elizabeth Smart, former kidnapping victim and advocate for children’s safety. Her story was a powerful way to begin the conference and the packed room was riveted by her story and courage.
NAMPI president John McCormick’s Monday morning remarks were short and sweet and set the tone for what turned out to be an excellent couple of days. In particular, I thought the breakout session on program integrity by the US Government Accountability Office was excellent, as well as a session discussing the facts and myths about Return on Investment. The panel included Illinois Inspector General Brad Hart, Ohio’s Lalita Jambhale, and Oklahoma’s Cindy Roberts. A session called Advanced Analytics was also well-attended and, in my opinion, one of the better forums.
There were several excellent vendor-specific sessions as well, most notably a session entitled “The Next Generation of Medicaid Program Integrity: Where Identity Data, Linking Technology, and Clearing Houses Intersect”, and a look at Missouri’s Medicaid Audit and Compliance programs sponsored by Truven Analytics.
A walk around the Exhibitor floor showed most of the usual suspects – HMS, Truven, SAS, IBM, and others. Each vendor had some uniqueness and most had interesting fraud detection and visual analytics. Still missing from the end-to-end solution equation, however, is an investigative case management system that is purpose designed for Medicaid fraud investigations. Most vendors talked a good talk… few could walk the walk in that area. And what about a biometrics play? Identity assurance is a key element to medical care, why not in program integrity? When will someone fill those voids?
Of note, 21CT was in attendance and had, from what I could see, one of the better overall demonstrations. Their Torch offering continues to impress. Also interesting, Appriss‘ continued push into the industry with their ever-growing database of incarceration records. All vendors performed well, and a full list of those sponsors and exhibitors can be found on the NAMPI Conference website.
Congratulations to NAMPI on an excellent conference, and here’s hoping that the ideas shared continue to put a dent in the billions lost to fraud each year.