LA County to use data mining technology to combat fraud

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors today approved a contract to employ high-tech solutions to detect child care benefits fraud.

The $3.2 million, two-year contract to target fraud in CalWORKs child care program will use data mining technology to help predict fraud.

"This technology will be a vital tool in our effort to prevent public assistance fraud and enhance the District Attorney's fraud investigations,'' said Supervisor Michael Antonovich.

"Data mining technology that looks for hidden patterns in data such as welfare applications and reports ... can predict fraud based on ... relationships among parties participating in suspicious activities, unusually large distances between work and home addresses and inconsistencies in the
information provided,'' Antonovich said.

A pilot program using the data mining technology had an 85 percent success rate in detecting fraud rings, according to Antonovich. He expected that its use would ultimately be extended to other fraud prevention efforts.

The county was separately awarded nearly $9.5 million by the state to help detect and combat fraud within the In-Home Support Services program that helps fund assistance for people who are elderly, disabled or blind.