How StopTheFakes will help to fight corruption
When working on our project we’ve got to know a lot of interesting people. We keep in touch with people from all walks of life: from small-scale entrepreneurs and big companies’ top-managers to government officials and non-governmental organization representatives. And when these people get to know our work they come up with with ever new ideas on how else we can apply StopTheFakes service. For example, in Spain they suggested to us to take an action against corruption. And as it turns out, our anticorruption efforts can be quite effective and budget friendly.
How developed countries control corruption
Non-governmental organizations are hold strong position at the front line of the war against corruption. Volunteers themselves check on civil servants, control their work and publicly disclose any instances of law infringement. Highly developed countries has long arrived at a consensus between the society and civil servants on anticorruption issues. It’s known for a fact that when we appoint one public officer to check on another the corruption level goes higher. Therefore, there rises a need for independent organization driven control. Which is why important government bodies have different social councils, supervisory committees and other voluntary associations of members of the public.
This is quite an ambiguous situation. On one hand, non-governmental organizations can ensure objective and impartial control although they often lack in resources, staff, and technical equipment. On the other hand, public officers possess surplus funds and yet, they are not able to build a viable system to control each other.
StopTheFakes.io is there to save the day, sever the Gordian knot and build a new effective system that works.
The service’s features
We’ve developed a system that can be highly instrumental when dealing with the following problems:
- Cheap, fast and effective way of controlling remote processes
- Reliably recording the object state “before” and “after”
- Соntrolling public figures’ financial position
- Anti-corruption organization’s accountability
- Big Data analysis-based infringement detection.
Remote control
StopTheFakes system allows to synchronize the control over some actions happening in different places. For quite reasonable remuneration, Doers from different cities will be able to provide photo and video evidence in definition required.
Case study
There’s a global greening program that asks every city of the country to plant 100 trees. More often than not such programs turn into the subject of corruption offences. Civil servants would often cook the books and deduct costs according to the alleged expenditures on services and goods that are nowhere to be found (in our case, trees). Even if all the cities would be only one new tree short, the amounts written off would be quite impressive.
StopTheFakes can help control execution of such programs. The Doers from every city can take a picture of a forest plantation and count the number of trees. It now makes no difference how many cities or people would join in on such project as our system makes it extremely easy to control both execution process and the result.
Recording the state
Another popular corruption scheme is executing unnecessary projects or imitating some actions. Civil servants take advantage of the fact that it is difficult to control the initial and final condition of some site. StopTheFakes.io will easily detect such violations.
Case study
To steal some money from the budget a civil servant might make a request for major roadway replacement work when there is no need for it in reality. The traffic-bearing surface has recently been placed and it only needs some minor maintenance job and by no means major road resurfacing. However, a full repair work has been ordered, a building companymakes it look like there’s a lot of action going on and as a result a significant part of public funds ends up “evaporating”.
One can easily create two Requests in StopTheFakes system asking to record the state of the road before and after the repair. Both Alerts will be recorded in Ethereum blockchain so that no one could delete or change them.
Checking on public figures
A corrupt civil servant is faced with a dilemma. On one hand, he steals money from the budget to enjoy a life of luxury. On the other hand, he has to submit the annual income declaration that reflects only his modest salary as a state worker. Generally, when it comes to luxury objects, bribetakers find an easy way out: they register property title to a relative, a friend or an acquaintance.
Case study
A public officer bought a luxurious sports car that he drives every day to work. The car costs far more than he can afford with his annual income. In order to hide his possession from journalists and social activists he registered the car for his mother-in-law. He parks the car at some distance from the office then rides one stop on public transportation.
Given that civil servant is a public figure, it’s legal to take pictures of him in most countries. One can create a Request to find a bribetaker’s car or other property in StopTheFakes system. It won’t be long till Doers find the civil servant’s car and expose his above-the-means lifestyle.
Non-governmental organization’s accountability
When trying to dodge a blow сorrupted civil servants сan accuse anti-corruption organizations in some sort of involvement, bias or political pressure. They can convict activists of political racketeering or claim that they’re acting on the rival party’s orders. And in case the accused organization lacks media resource, legal support or transparency in accounting, а crooked civil servant will get the upper hand.
Case study
An organization that uses StopTheFakes service will never have any problems with expenditure accounting management. The participants’ actions are recorded in blockchain. At any given moment one can easily collect statistics and any information needed.
Big Data analysis-based infringement detection
We live in a wonderful age when one can analyze any amount of data. By analyzing search queries Google employees are able to predict influenza epidemics a week earlier than the best Ministry of Health specialists can. New York municipal services use big data to predict what manholes are likely to explode. StopTheFakes will also be able to analyze data collected by millions of users worldwide.
Case study
The first StopTheFakes’s priority is anti-counterfeit efforts. A simple statistics analysis of the criminal rate in different regions can hypothetically reveal places where civil servants tend to turn a blind eye to violations. It only makes sense for nonprofit organizations to maximize their efforts in these regions.
Full corruption control automation
A non-governmental organization seeking to eradicate stealing from the national budget can entrust StopTheFakes system with all its field work. Employees of such an organization can create Requests, get Alerts and analyze the results without leaving the office. Performance efficiency will significantly increase. For now social activists have either to invite volunteers or do the field work with the scarce resources they have. This undermines efficiency, narrows the span of control and affects reaction time needed to address detected infringements.
StopTheFakes is the most cost smart, fast and effective system for collecting information on the Internet and in the real world. It’s always easier to hire locals than to send an employee on a business trip.
