Spain Tackles Corruption With Blockchain AI and Amendments to Its Anti-Corruption Laws: Expert Take

According to TI's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2017, Spain slid eight points to be one of the EU's lowest ranked countries due to a spate of high-profile corruption scandals over the last decade - with public procurement being particularly vulnerable.

Albeit, Spain has been actively combating corruption by amending its anti-corruption laws and by developing blockchain and artificial intelligence solutions.

After adopting new OECD-approved legislative measures to fight corruption and to promote transparency in political activities and institutions in 2015, Spanish law enforcement officials have been struggling to keep up with the overwhelming caseload. Between July 2015 and September 2016, 1378 officials were prosecuted for corruption, with another 29 convicted by Spain's high court on May 24, involving the Gürtel corruption scandal, which is one of the country's biggest corruption scandals in modern history.

The court, in its 1687-page opinion, said Popular Party politicians participated in "An authentic and efficient system of institutional corruption via mechanisms to manipulate public tenders at the national, regional and local level," most of it while Mariano Rajoy himself held key positions in both the government and the party.

The Gürtel corruption scandal is not the only high-level corruption case that has been deliberated by Spain's high court.

Spain develops blockchain & artificial intelligence technologies used in combating corruption.

According to an OECD paper, blockchain technology - by bringing transparency to the public procurement funding process - can be used as a preventative measure against corruption that may distort the fairness of awarding public procurement contracts, reduce the quality of basic public services, limit opportunities to develop a competitive private sector and undermine trust in public institutions.

As a member of the European Blockchain Partnership, Spain is committed to building EU-wide blockchain and AI applications that can be used in the fight against corruption across the Digital Single Market for the benefit of the public and private sectors.

For effective corruption and tax evasion detection, researchers from the University of Valladolid have developed an AI application.

This early warning system analyzes data from a variety of sources: Spanish provinces in which actual cases of corruption were reported by the media or went to court between 2000 and 2012; real estate price increases; taxes; economic growth; the growing number of deposit institutions and non-financial firms; and the same political party remaining in power for long periods - to predict public corruption based on economic and political factors.