IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Consumer Sentinel, an E-gov application developed by Arlington-based software development firm InterImage, was recognized today by the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) in partnership with E-Gov and the Federal CIO Council as a finalist to receive the prestigious Excellence.Gov award. The award recognizes government programs that have demonstrated excellence in E- Government innovation. IAC made the "Top 25" awards based on the extent of the project's impact, how the project saved resources or increased productivity, the involvement of other agencies or levels of government, and repeatability for other government agencies.

The Consumer Sentinel project has touched hundreds of other agencies at all levels of government, benefiting and protecting consumers in the US and Canada by giving law enforcement agencies the data they need to shut down cross-border consumer frauds and identify thefts. Consumer Sentinel acts as the central repository of fraud data. The application collects consumer complaints from numerous federal and international consumer response and complaint centers as well as local Better Business Bureaus in the US and Canada. This data is then shared with law enforcement agencies in federal, state and foreign governments using state of the art web-based tools for searching, mining and visualizing the data to facilitate investigations and prosecutions.

"Consumer Sentinel is a tool that has increased law enforcement productivity and effectiveness in fighting fraud and identity theft and has unified the efforts of law enforcement agencies at all levels of government. For example, the earliest lead in a recent joint crackdown prosecuted by the FTC and eight states came from the Consumer Sentinel complaint database. The FTC and the states succeeded in shutting down a pyramid scheme for defrauding consumers of more than $200 million," according to the FTC.

"The Consumer Sentinel project is a great example of how an innovative small business can play a valuable role in helping the Federal Government meet E-gov goals. The information technology in this project meets goals President Bush articulated in his State of the Union address, such as for intelligence agencies to merge and analyze threat information in a single location. The FTC is already making the best information possible available to the right people in the right places to protect our citizens. InterImage is proud to be helping agencies, such as the FTC, meet these IT challenges today," said InterImage CEO Leslie Steele. For more about FTC Consumer Sentinel project visit www.consumer.gov/sentinel/.

"Our work with the FTC is innovative. It shows how InterImage can help federal agencies achieve the goals in the President's Management Agenda and make more services available to citizens and businesses," said InterImage CIO Keith Ballurio.

Quelle: Yahoo Finance