The High Authority invited to take part in a working group of the EPAC

On 26 and 27 March, the High Authority was invited to take part in a working group of the Network of European partners against corruption (EPAC). This working group focuses on the “analysis of big data, related legal aspects and use of databases” in the field of anticorruption investigations.

This was the second meeting of the group, organized by the National anticorruption Directorate (DNA) in Bucharest. This session gathered about fifteen practitioners from different anticorruption authorities from Member States of the European Union and of the Council of Europe.

This group aims at discussing the implementation and concrete use of big data softwares to investigate corruption cases. This session notably allowed to confront different solutions existing in some countries (Germany, Belgium, Romania, Lithuania, Austria, etc.) but also to learn more about softwares used by some of the agencies of the European Union such as the European antifraud office (OLAF) and the European Police Office (EUROPOL).

Then, during half-a-day, participants were proposed, in small workshops and by pairs, to reflect on drafting a guide on technical standards to create a big data software in the field of anticorruption investigations. These workshops allowed to think about best practices to adopt at each stage of the implementation of the software, which means compiling, sorting, cleaning date, integrating them in an internal system, storing, sharing and transferring them.

Last, to link the digital dimension and the business-specific aspects, limits of the big data projects were evoked, whether concrete limits such as interpreting the results or legal limits such as private data protection. A now work meeting of the group should be organized in order to pursue these discussions.