More time for fraud prevention sought by state, local government workers

StateScoop reports that state and local government workers noted wanting to spend up to 37% of their time on front-end fraud prevention but are only allocating nearly 27% of their time on such activities, indicating respondents' continued preference for fraud prevention over fraud detection or investigation. False unemployment insurance claims, as well as forged documents and falsified records, were the most prevalent fraudulent activity observed by respondents, a Thomson Reuters survey showed. Seventy percent of government fraud detection workers reported identifying fraudulent activity by cross-referencing different data sources, including unemployment benefits and prison records, while 60% and 25% depended on whistleblowers evidence and leveraged artificial intelligence-based tools to identify fraud, respectively. Fraudulent activity, which spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, is also not expected by 60% of respondents to subside. The findings also showed that while 83% had the necessary fraud prevention tools, nearly one-third did not adopt data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and stronger identity management for improved cyber defenses.