25 September 2024 – In a globalized world, the fight against corruption cannot be carried out solely at national level. Rather, it involves the coordination of actions at international level to harmonize standards and the sharing of good practices. This makes cooperation between national anti-corruption agencies and international bodies, whether they have regulatory or preventive roles, essential.
Transnational cooperation efforts should fully embrace the need for technologically- advanced solutions in the fight against corruption.
For example, the increasing digitalization of financial and public procurement management processes, along with greater access to government data, presents several opportunities for creating data analysis tools both nationally and globally. Platforms powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies can greatly enhance the visibility of public fund management operations and the ability to process and interpret massive volumes of data in real-time. This enables early detection of suspicious transactions or potential fraud, which may indicate acts of corruption.
In recent years, the use of AI tools in the fight against corruption has sparked numerous initiatives. Several countries are working on the use of AI for more targeted management of public procurement risks and the development of intervention measures through the exploitation and cross-checking of data from different sources. The World Bank's launch in 2021 of a prototype platform for the fight against corruption and transparency in public procurement (ProACT) is also part of this framework.
However, leveraging AI in the fight against corruption requires a number of prerequisites, including the digitization of all management processes, the availability of inclusive platforms, and access to secure, cross-referenced data from a variety of sources. In this context, the GlobE Network, as a forum for collaboration between international anti-corruption entities and law enforcement agencies, can be the bearer of capacity-building projects in this area and a driving force for more exchange of good practices in cross-border cooperation using new technologies. The GlobE Network “Directory of Open-Source Registries” represents an eloquent example.
From a technical point of view, the use of AI to combat corruption demands not only secure data traffic and search algorithms but also transparent AI systems. The transparency of AI-based decisions requires clarity of design and the interpretability of the algorithms’ finite and unambiguous steps taken to obtain a result (comprehensibility). The technical knowledge of institutional actors in the fight against corruption should be adapted to this type of development to ensure the security of such algorithms, including its design, detection of failures, and correction of potential biases.
On a legal level, the regulation of AI and the ethical considerations surrounding the use of new technologies are gaining prominence globally. In the context of anti-corruption, developing a robust legal framework to govern AI - whether for risk assessment or fraud detection - is critical. This ensures the legal security of procedures and their enforceability, as well as the preservation of the fundamental human rights of the persons concerned by the results of data processing.
New challenges arise when thinking about the impact of progress related to AI and AI-based anti-corruption tools (AI-ACT), as a new player in the prevention and fight against corruption. Current approaches to collecting and processing the information needed to understand the evolution of corruption, the indicators for its measurement, investigation techniques and information exchange at the level of transnational anti-corruption cooperation are vital.
Large Language Models (LLMs) stand at the forefront of this new AI-ACT era, and effectively evaluating their performance is essential and requires the development of proportionate, lawful, accountable and necessary regulatory frameworks, investment in education and training, and promoting international collaboration to share best practices and resources.
Meryam Annouz, PhD, is the focal point of the National Authority for Probity, Prevention and Fight against Corruption of Morocco to the GlobE Network and member of its Steering Committee.
