New Report Provides Stakeholder-driven Insight into the Fight Against Economic Crime

The report identifies obstacles and recommended actions for advancing collective efforts to combat the global challenge

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Strategic advisory firm Global Counsel, working in conjunction with pioneering Privacy Enhancing Technology company Enveil, announced the release of a new report aimed at advancing the fight against economic crime. This pervasive challenge makes a $3.1 trillion dollar annual global impact and costs the UK economy an estimated £8.5bn each year.

The report, "Breaking barriers: How data sharing can transform the fight against economic crime," examines how the government and private sector can prevent and tackle economic crime by providing greater direction on data and intelligence sharing. Commissioned by Enveil and the culmination of a months-long effort, the research shows that a broad consensus exists to advance fraud mitigation efforts that would create a hostile environment for criminals. 

"The lack of a clear, collective focus on economic crime prevention policy and practices by stakeholders across this space was the primary driver for undertaking this research effort," said Ellison Anne Williams, CEO of Enveil. "We live in a data-rich, technology-enabled world that is ripe with opportunity to evolve, and we've started to recognize areas where groundbreaking tools and capabilities can drive positive outcomes. This includes Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), which are currently being explored and leveraged in sandbox and real-world deployments on a global scale."

The content of the white paper was sourced from interviews conducted by Global Counsel across a wide range of senior stakeholders from UK organizations at the forefront of economic crime detection, prevention, and mitigation. The authors specifically focused on cultural and policy barriers to better collaboration, data sharing, and technological innovation.

The research identifies four obstacles to data and intelligence sharing:

• A lack of clear incentives that address cost and regulatory risk: Firms want to help, but they need legislative clarity to make it easy and inexpensive to do so.
• Legal ambiguity: Firms need legal clarity, for example around terms such as 'economic crime', to help them manage legal risk.
• A better understanding of new technologies: Criminals move fast to adapt to technological change but firms sometimes are slow to adopt new methods, particularly third-party solutions such as Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs).
• A fragmented data-sharing environment: There are wide differences between cross-sector pilots due to inconsistent governance and data requirements where a standardized approach would make participation easier and lower cost.

Further, the report suggests progress can be made if the government and private sector provide greater direction on data and intelligence sharing. It offers three recommendations for action specific to the UK:

• The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), and National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) should run operational pilots, testing new technologies such as PETs, including a wide range of public and private stakeholders, to produce a common understanding of how technology can help.
• The Government should call time on voluntary agreements and mandate information sharing in the financial services sector.
• The Government should authorize the ICO and other regulatory bodies to oversee a standardized lexicon for UK data and intelligence sharing.

The current economic crime climate necessitates bold action by both policy makers and industry stakeholders — and a sustainable, near-term solution will be found at the intersection of policy, technology, and a commitment to action. This means working to leverage the cross-boundary data and technology-enabling capabilities that will allow stakeholders to collaborate and fight economic crimes more effectively.

Learn more about the research methodology and read the full report here.

About Enveil
Enveil is a pioneering Privacy Enhancing Technology company protecting Data in Use and changing the paradigm of how and where organizations can leverage data to unlock value. Defining the transformative category of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), Enveil's award-winning ZeroReveal® solutions for secure data usage, collaboration, monetization, and Secure AI protect the content of the search, analytic, or model while it's being used or processed. Using these business-enabling and privacy-preserving capabilities, customers can extract insights, cross-match, search, analyze, and utilize AI across boundaries and silos at scale without exposing their interests and intent or compromising the security or ownership of the underlying data. A World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and Gartner Cool Vendor, Enveil is deployed and operational today, revolutionizing data usage in the global marketplace. Learn more at www.enveil.com.

Global Counsel 
Global Counsel is a strategic advisory business. We help companies and investors across a wide range of sectors to anticipate the ways in which politics, regulation and public policymaking create both risk and opportunity — and to develop and implement strategies to meet these challenges. Our team has experience in politics and policymaking in national governments and international institutions backed with deep regional and local knowledge.

Our offices in Berlin, Brussels, Doha, London, Singapore and Washington DC are supported by a global network of policymakers, businesses and advisers. Our partnership with The Messina Group and wider international network further strengthens our global reach. Learn more at www.global-counsel.com.

SOURCE Enveil