Microsoft ACTS and Microsoft Research

Microsoft ACTS, our Advanced Cloud Transparency Services initiative, has partnered with Microsoft Research’s Human Rights Technology program (MSR). Together, we’re working to develop groundbreaking new ways to analyze and visualize relationships and risk patterns in data that governments can use to tackle corruption proactively. 

Our collaboration is built on a shared vision: leverage Microsoft technology and insights to make transparency easier to achieve for any organization—without the need for data science expertise. 

By giving us unprecedented early access to emerging technologies, MSR supports and advances the ACTS mission of mobilizing the power of data and technology to assist governments in accelerating and enhancing transparency. We use these technologies—in most cases, originally developed for different applications—to make an immediate impact for governments working to identify risks and suspicious activities that may indicate corruption. 

The partnership with MSR allows ACTS to bridge emerging technology and real-world application. This is a true game-changer in helping government agencies tackle corruption in their processes. 

A proactive approach  

The truth about corruption lies beyond what we can see on the surface. New data-powered visualizations offer governments a surprising glimpse into patterns that reveal potential risks, enabling them to act earlier. 

“The ACTS program, and our customers, and the governments that we work with, benefit tremendously from having access to Microsoft Research,” says Chris Nelson, associate general counsel, Proactive Risk Engagement for Microsoft Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs. “They help us bring nascent technology to specific problems in the procurement space, or the customs space, or to understanding the relationships between actors and entities for purposes of beneficial ownership tracking.” 

The broad perspective and techniques MSR brings to the table are more advanced than off-the-shelf solutions or today’s industry-standard approaches. Working with MSR enables us—for the first time—to combine proven mathematical techniques with existing government data to uncover hidden evidence of unusual relationships between entities in a system. 

Using these innovative tools and methodologies that employ cloud services, AI and machine learning, and data visualization, we analyze and model government data. This allows us to uncover suspicious relationship patterns that might otherwise be missed and predict potential risk based on the history and changes in those relationships. 

Using network models that demonstrate how entities relate to each other over time, both statistical patterns and anomalies emerge. Suspicious patterns in the data are presented in a visually intuitive interface, so agencies don’t need data science expertise to identify potential corruption in business relationships. 

Agencies now use data graphs to visualize and compare networks so they can analyze that data for themselves—often for the first time. We explore this at length in our article on using data to tackle corruption with transparency and technology.