An open, global map of conflicts of interest

Corruption is arguably one of humanities most hideous calamities.

Besides the unfathomable economic costs we briefly mentioned in our introduction - 2% of the world's GDP, amounting to more than 2,000 $US Billions a year -, corruption is also a major threat to democracy and the rule of law. It undermines trust in public institutions, erodes the moral fiber of society, and hinders the fight against poverty and inequalities.

Various frameworks and tools are thus being developed and implemented all around the world. But we believe the lack of a global, open, and interoperable database of conflicts of interest is a major obstacle to the success of these initiatives.

The problem

Unsurprisingly, software alone won't solve all forms of corruption. Phyicial encounters will always take place, and the most sophisticated software will never be able to detect and prevent all the subtile interactions that may constitute the act of corruption.

But it will be able to work extremely well in a very specific case of corruption: administrative corruption.

What is administrative corruption?

Administrative corruption is the abuse of public power for private gain in the context of an administrative process. It is the most common form of corruption, and it is also the most detectable form of corruption. Fortunately, since it usually relies on a physical support, technical solutions can be put in place to prevent most violations.

Cryptography can be applied to create digital certificates used to sign administrative documents. These certificates will be used to prove the identity of the person who signed the document, and to prove that the document has not been altered since it was signed.

The use of public decentralized networks create tamper-proof records of this administrative processes, and timestamp it in a way that proves that the administrative process was conducted in a fair and transparent manner.

Putting these safeguards in place, at scale, could this largely reduce the cost that administrative corruption bears in the global economy. This is why the Organigram Protocol was designed.

What are conflicts of interest?

If these tools can help prevent administrative corruption, they can also help us to better understand the complex relationships between the different actors involved in corruption schemes.

By using a universal standard for the representation of both administrative processes and legal entities, we can create a global, open, and interoperable database of conflicts of interest, based on the idea they can be identified by statically analyzing the relationships between the different actors involved in a given organization.

Then, using machine learning algorithms trained on this data, we can help identify potentially vulnerable procedures in the public sector automatically.

Contributing

This colossal work is still in progress, as we gather legal data from heterogeneous sources, and develop the tools to process it. Don't hesitate to give us a hand if you are interested in the project!