Anti-Corruption Initiative: Codewise Joins WEF PACI

Last week, on May 21-22, Codewise’s Executive Chairman and CEO John Malatesta and Chief Compliance Officer Milosz Demczuk took part in the Bi-Annual Anti-Corruption Community Meeting hosted by the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) in Geneva, Switzerland. 

What is WEF PACI?

WEF PACI is a world-leading public-private platform in the global anti-corruption arena. With approximately 90 member companies from different sectors across the globe, PACI serves as the principal business voice on anti-corruption and transparency.

PACI signatories include some of the world’s most prominent companies and organizations, such as Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Citigroup, Deloitte, KPMG, EY, Microsoft, Dell Technologies and others. Codewise joined PACI as an official member earlier this month.

Last Week’s WEF PACI Meeting

The Bi-Annual Community PACI meeting last week was heavily focused on the topic of designing technological solutions to combat corruption and on concrete actions that can be taken to make anti-corruption programs more effective.

Dr. Malatesta covered the topic of digital fraud, which originates from the following traits of the digital ecosystem:

• The multitude of actors (publishers, advertisers, AdTech companies, hosting and payment vendors, agencies, etc.)
• The interconnections between actors are mostly indirect
• The actors are digital, thus potentially fully anonymous
• Interactions happen at the “speed of light” (under 200 ms)

All of the above creates a lack of transparency, which is a fertile ground for fraud.

PACI participants engaged in a conversation on how machine learning and big data can address the challenges of the modern business environment.

Most participants agreed that there is a need across major businesses to cooperate in fighting against corruption.

However, due to the fragmentation of the global market and different compliance processes this cooperation can’t advance without the engagement of technology, which could effectively block or even predict fraudulent behavior based on specific metrics.

Machine Learning, an Anti-Corruption Solution?

Machine learning algorithms, based on historical events, can build an effective solution for risk prediction, which could be used across different organizations. The main question remaining is how such an exchange of information could potentially affect the competitiveness of different actors, and if security measures (like data encryption) are good enough to prevent any misconduct in this area.

In Drs. Malatesta’s and Demczuk’s opinion, the ultimate solution for digital fraud is a blockchain-based digital ecosystem, a distributed ledger of online interactions that brings together all actors of the digital ecosystem onto one open platform, creating the conditions for full transparency.

The difficulty is in incentivizing the actors to agree to adopt an open platform. A great start would be the establishment of a board of experts from key actors of the global digital ecosystem, including both advertisers and publishers (media companies), to enact the minimum standards that need to be met by all participants of the digital ecosystem.

What’s Next for WEF PACI

PACI and the broader WEF has all the makings to be a platform to stimulate the discussion of this solution among industries and among public and private sectors and to advise institutions such as the European Parliament.

As one of the leading developers of AI-based solutions and one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe, Codewise is happy to keep on sharing its expertise and knowledge to help fight all forms of corruption, including digital fraud.

Codewise is excited to join PACI as a full-time member, and our team is looking forward to working with like-minded leading companies on putting an end to the spread of corruption, both in the physical world and the digital space.