Data Scientists at Britain’s largest defence, aerospace and security company, BAE Systems, have revealed details of a technology pilot aimed at supporting child protection agencies. The initial project, run in partnership with Gloucestershire Constabulary Police Force, was the brainchild of data analysts who saw an opportunity to improve the speed and accuracy for identifying potentially vulnerable children.
In a unique pilot, BAE Systems adapted technology normally used to protect and safeguard businesses against fraudulent activity, to quickly and accurately bring together data relating to an individual and reveal the full picture of a vulnerable child’s reported issues.
The trial has demonstrated how this technology could help reduce the number of cases of maltreatment towards children through early intervention. As well as creating a faster, more efficient process for identifying and sharing key indicators of potentially harmful situations, it also allowed child protection practitioners to delve into more incidents, in more detail and implement urgent care plans where needed.
From an insurers point of view, the same protocols and data analytics processing can help to identify particular patterns of incidents, or behaviour, which in turn can lead to much more effective anti-fraud and claims handling management.
The project analysed three years’ worth of historic data sets in just four hours, bringing together data from a variety of disparate agencies. The successful pilot achieved results ten times faster than under existing processes, solving the challenge of sharing data, linking it together, analysing it and identifying what required further investigation. As of July 2018, 61,500* children were listed on the child protection register or subject to a protection plan in the UK which highlights the scale of the challenge.
Ravi Gogna, Principal Consultant at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, said: “After the tragic case of Baby P, we identified the need to overcome the data problem and adapted our existing technology and data science techniques, which helps banks and insurers tackle fraud, to amalgamate key historic pieces of data across agencies. This provided child protection officers with access to a more in-depth and comprehensive data profile of each child in the quickest possible time.
Every broker, MGA or insurer potentially has a unique set of data parameters that it can feed into the same process. By piecing together information and cross-matching it within a structured framework, companies in the insurance sector can gain greater insights from the records they already have.
“The pilot scheme for child protection was geared towards looking for red flag events – such as a child self-harming or coming into A&E with multiple broken bones. But in a wider context this is in essence, the same process; the data is giving the user a holistic view of what is happening.” added Ravi.
Kath Davis, Head of the Child Protection Unit, Gloucestershire Constabulary, said: “The pilot proves that, with increased information, we have a greater chance of intervening early and preventing catastrophic events from happening down the line. To work with people from a completely different sector shed a whole new light on things. Things that we thought were impossible, became possible.”
This article is sponsored content, produced in association with BAE Systems
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