Friday, August 11, 2017

Facial Identities: More Money, Less Fraud: Using Data to Detect Dishonesty

The federal government is contemplating using a need to update the IT infrastructure behind the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s business registry as an opportunity to create a single whole-of-government business database. It is looking at merging the dozens of separate business registers that have developed for specific purposes over time and are now operating on outdated technology, as part of the 'national business simplification initiative' announced last November.


Revenue and financial services minister Kelly O’Dwyer today kicked off consultation [pdf] on how to improve the user experience of business registers, which the government says is not meeting public expectations.




UK hacker arrested in US over banking malware





AI Creates Fake Obama
IEEE
Spectrum Artificial intelligence software could generate highly realistic fake videos of former president Barack Obama using existing audio and video clips of him.



Upgrading the public sector to an e-government. Raconteur Sweden and South Korea, two countries at the forefront of public sector digitalisation, provide insights into how a digitalised public sector looks and how it can improve citizens’ lives







ID Fraud

Facial recognition coming to Australian airports
CIO The federal government will spend $22.5 million over the next three years deploying facial recognition technology at Australia’s airports, eliminating the need for travelers to produce passports at gates.

Australia Post delivers on Digital iD
The Mandarin Digital iD™ is a service designed to let you verify your information once and then easily prove who you are online and in person through the smartphone app.


RIP: The John Updike Society — In Memoriam: former Knopf editor Judith Jones


GT, Identifying fraud after it has already happened allows governments to recoup lost funds, but what if they could stop fraud from happening in the first place? The State of New Mexico has sought to do just that, pairing analytics with insights from behavioural science to discourage residents from committing unemployment fraud, which costs state governments more than $4 billion yearly.


HM Revenue and Customs individuals, small businesses and agents customer survey 2016
HMRC, The Customer Survey measures customers’ experience of interacting with HMRC, their perceptions of compliance and HMRC’s reputation for three main customer groups:

•individuals

•small businesses


•financial agents




Customer experience of Intelligent Telephony Automation
HMRC Research to understand customer perceptions of, and behavioural responses to, Intelligent Telephony Automation used on HMRC customer helplines.



Sri Lanka's new tax bill, demanded by the IMF as a condition for a third tranche of aid disbursed this week, will seek to ensure that all citizens pay direct taxes and cut indirect taxes, top finance ministry officials said on Friday.
Why We Hate Our Exes So Much After Breaking Up. I’m guessing that the answer to this question is narcissism, poor judgment, and immaturity




Diane Ring (Surly Subgroup): The Tail, the Dog, and Gig Workers 

New legislation has just been introduced in the Senate that creates a “safe harbor” for independent contractor status. The proposed legislation provides that if a worker relationship satisfies certain criteria, then that worker can bypass the sometimes messy, multi-factor test for distinguishing between employees and independent contractors, and will be classified as an independent contractor for tax purposes. What prompted action now to address what has been a decades-old classification challenge for workers, businesses and the IRS alike? The gig economy. (Hence, the not-so-catchy title for the legislation: The New Economy Works to Guarantee Independence and Growth (NEW GIG) Act of 2017 (S. 1549)):

The legislation’s sponsor, Senate Finance Committee member John Thune, (R-S.D), described the impetus for the legislation as follows: “My legislation would provide clear rules so that these freelance style workers can work as independent contractors with the peace of mind that their tax status will be respected by the IRS.”

Is this really what gig workers are worrying about? . . .


The U.S. faces two major fiscal problems. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both that also improves the fairness of the tax system.







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Nanomaterials are closest thing we have to real-life ‘superheroes’ – Prof. Valeria Nicolosi
EU Horizon . Utilising the superhero properties of materials around an atom thick could revolutionise how we store energy in electronic devices.



Australian politicians born overseas jump to clarify citizenship  ...