Connect is a new

social network analysis software Social network analysis software (SNA software) is software which facilitates quantitative or qualitative analysis of social networks, by describing features of a network either through numerical or visual representation. Overview Networks can ...

data mining computer system developed by

HMRC , patch = , patchcaption = , logo = HM Revenue & Customs.svg , logocaption = , badge = , badgecaption = , flag = , flagcaption = , image_size = , co ...

(UK) that cross-references business's and people's tax records with other databases to establish fraudulent or undisclosed (misdirected) activity.

History

HMRC introduced Connect in the summer of 2010; it was not fully functioning. Around 350 HMRC employees are involved with Connect, who work with an ''analytical compliance environment''. Connect was developed by

BAE Systems Applied Intelligence BAE Systems Digital Intelligence (formerly Detica, then BAE Systems Applied Intelligence) is an international business and technology consulting firm owned by BAE Systems. It specializes in "security and resilience", and in collecting, managing ...

(former

Detica BAE Systems Digital Intelligence (formerly Detica, then BAE Systems Applied Intelligence) is an international business and technology consulting firm owned by BAE Systems. It specializes in "security and resilience", and in collecting, managing ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

) for £45m. From September 2016, Connect has interfaced with financial information from

British Overseas Territories The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remna ...

; these have been known

tax haven A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

s. From 2017 Connect has interfaced with around sixty other

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...

countries.

Sources of information

Connect cross-references information from many other UK government databases, including: * Adverts on the internet e.g.

Rightmove Rightmove plc is a UK-based company which runs rightmove.co.uk, the UK's largest online real estate property portal. Rightmove is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. History Rightmove was incorporat ...

and

Zoopla ZPG Ltd. is a British real estate company based in London, England, owned by Silver Lake Partners. Its brands include the property website Zoopla, price comparison service Uswitch, finance comparison website Money.co.uk, personal finance content ...

* Bank accounts and pensions * Council tax * Credit and debit card transactions, going back four years *

Companies House Companies House is the executive agency of the company registrars of the United Kingdom, falling under the remit of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. All forms of companies (as permitted by the Companies Act) are i ...

DVLA The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA; cy, Asiantaeth Trwyddedu Gyrwyr a Cherbydau) is the organisation of the UK government responsible for maintaining a database of drivers in Great Britain and a database of vehicles for the entire ...

* DWP (former

Benefits Agency The Benefits Agency (BA), a now defunct UK government welfare department, was an executive agency of the United Kingdom Department of Social Security (subsequently the Department for Work and Pensions , type = Department , seal = , logo ...

) * eBay and other internet marketplaces * The

electoral roll An electoral roll (variously called an electoral register, voters roll, poll book or other description) is a compilation that lists persons who are entitled to vote for particular elections in a particular jurisdiction. The list is usually broke ...

Gas Safe Register Gas Safe Register is the official gas registration body for the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Guernsey, appointed by the relevant Health and Safety Authority for each area. By law all gas engineers must be on the Gas Safe Register. Gas Safe R ...

* Insurance companies *

Land Registry Land registration is any of various systems by which matters concerning ownership, possession, or other rights in land are formally recorded (usually with a government agency or department) to provide evidence of title, facilitate transactions, a ...

- for

capital gains tax A capital gains tax (CGT) is the tax on profits realized on the sale of a non-inventory asset. The most common capital gains are realized from the sale of stocks, Bond (finance), bonds, precious metals, real estate, and property. Not all count ...

HMRC also independently looks at

Google Earth Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...

Technology

The system deploys the

chi-squared test A chi-squared test (also chi-square or test) is a statistical hypothesis test used in the analysis of contingency tables when the sample sizes are large. In simpler terms, this test is primarily used to examine whether two categorical variable ...

and

Benford's law Benford's law, also known as the Newcomb–Benford law, the law of anomalous numbers, or the first-digit law, is an observation that in many real-life sets of numerical data, the leading digit is likely to be small.Arno Berger and Theodore ...

to look for anomalous tax receipts. The system is operated by the Risk and Intelligence Service (RIS) division of HMRC. The software combines analytic tools (Enterprise Guide) from

SAS Institute SAS Institute (or SAS, pronounced "sass") is an American multinational developer of analytics software based in Cary, North Carolina. SAS develops and markets a suite of analytics software ( also called SAS), which helps access, manage, analy ...

, which collects the information, and NetReveal from BAE Systems AI, which collates it into meaningful information. It deploys

predictive analytics Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of statistical techniques from data mining, predictive modeling, and machine learning that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or otherwise unknown events. In business ...

similar to

credit scoring A credit score is a numerical expression based on a level analysis of a person's credit files, to represent the creditworthiness of an individual. A credit score is primarily based on a credit report, information typically sourced from credit bu ...

, and has dynamic benchmarking. It looks for correlation of income with lifestyle, by comparing with multivariate statistical models; outliers from expected variance will be investigated.

Definition of data

Undeclared work is plotted on mapping software, allowing undeclared work to be seen at a street by street level.https://www.ifa.org.uk/media/653935/Tax-HMRC-Connect-system.pdf

Purpose

Connect looks for income disparities, often caused by undeclared income. If someone drives an expensive car, but does not have the income to run one or afford one, Connect can discover this.

References

External links