The Institution Control Section of the Court of Auditors approved, with Resolution no. 95/2023, the 2021 management report of the General Information Technology Company (SOGEI spa) - entirely owned by the MEF - which manages the IT systems of the public administrations.
Among the main activities carried out during the year, the evolution of the control and reporting system of the Court of Auditors; the application for the integrated management of the Land Registry; national application platforms; electronic invoicing and pre-populated VAT; anti-fraud applications in tax matters; the electronic health record. Sogei is also entrusted with the task of supporting, with technical skills, the State General Accounting Office in the implementation of the PNRR.
Compared to 2020, the cost of labor rises by 5,9% (equal to 170.992.848 euros) and the annual per capita cost is slightly decreasing, which amounts to 73.700 euros.
Net assets grew by approximately 32,3 million euros (+20,4% on 2020), going from 158,5 to 190,9 million due to the 120% increase in operating profit (equal to 59.306.830. XNUMX euros).
The operating result also grew (+122,3%), due to the increase in production costs (+8,3%) more than offset by the increase in the value of production (+15%), from 632,2 to 727,3 million in 2021.
Financial flows generated an 82,9% increase in liquid assets (equal to 46.375.230 euros), thanks to the improvement in positive flows from operating activity (+102,3% compared to 2020).
As regards gaming, SOGEI creates technological solutions that allow the Customs and Monopolies Agency to carry out control and management activities in the sector, contributing, on the one hand, to combating illegal gaming and guaranteeing the State the collection of taxes due, on the other, to ensure players have a regulated and monitored environment.
RECEIPT LOTTERY
The 2017 budget law established a national lottery called the Fee Lottery, commonly known as the "Receipt Lottery", launched in 2021 as required by art. 141 of the aforementioned legislative decree no. 34 of 2020 (so-called “Relaunch” decree). On 1 February 2021, the receipt lottery system was activated, which allows shoppers to participate in the lottery through purchases of goods and services of at least one euro, made from merchants who transmit the fees electronically and, paying with electronic tools (cards credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards and payment apps), produce "virtual tickets" and automatically allow participation in the lottery: one virtual ticket for every euro spent (up to a maximum of 1.000 tickets for each receipt of an amount equal to or greater than 1 euro).
REMOTE GAME COLLECTION MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL SYSTEM
The project aims to support the Customs and Monopolies Agency in verifying the work of concessionaires and in combating the illegality of remote gaming. Through the data recorded on the ACG system (Gambling Account Registry) it is possible to monitor the progress of each individual account, with the aim of combating money laundering and preventing compulsive behavior that causes gambling addiction.
NEW FOOTBALL POOL
The Customs and Monopolies Agency has launched, in 2021, a new mode relating to the football pools game. With the innovations introduced by the automated algorithm it will be possible to play the betting slip in the physical points of sale, and even remotely, of authorized dealers.
LEGAL GAMING APP
The "Legal Gaming" app was born in 2021 as a means of combating illegal gaming, providing citizens with a tool to promptly verify the legality of the gaming offer on Italian territory.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND CONTROLS
Business intelligence consists of the set of models, methods, processes, people and tools that make possible the organized collection of data generated inside or outside an organization. The subsequent processing and analysis allows the data themselves to be transformed into "information", which normally constitutes support for making decisions and developing strategies. SOGEI has developed control methodologies and tools to give greater effectiveness to actions to prevent and combat tax evasion, crimes, fraud, tax and non-tax crimes, through improving the quality of controls and checks carried out by the various Agencies . These tools, based on big data technology, allow, through the application of clustering algorithms, artificial intelligence and the use of graphDB, to quickly process large amounts of data, both structured and unstructured.
FRAUD – GAMING SECTOR
The betting and gaming market in general has shown rapid expansion in recent years. The sector presents marked critical issues, also due to the ever-growing interest on the part of organized crime, for which the world of games constitutes fertile ground in which to set up profitable money laundering activities. The importance of having technologically advanced tools available that allow methodical and effective monitoring of the network, as well as rapid analysis of the results thus collected, is evident. The solution, developed over the last three years, brings together various declinations of the project to expand and innovate tools to assist in the analysis and detection of illicit behaviour.
ONLINE POKER FRAUD
With reference to Online Poker, a series of innovations were introduced in 2021 concerning the preparation of a data collection including information relating to players and their activities for a period of four months, on the basis of which various indicators were designed and implemented, which at different levels try to discover anomalous trends in player behavior. Further data analysis and advanced filtering features have been introduced, aimed at classifying players and assigning them a risk coefficient which provides the basis for further analysis.
FRAUD – ANALYSIS BY SUBJECT
The analysis project by subject was born as an aid to the control and monitoring activities of all the subjects present in the Monopoly supply chain, in relation to the gaming and tobacco systems.
The application provides risk indices and alerts on games and tobacco and a simulation area in which it is possible to vary the weights of the individual elements making up some indices to verify their variation.
ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING PLATFORM
In 2019, the development of a new tool for the Customs and Monopolies Agency began, which will be able to contribute to the monitoring of procedures and control systems aimed at mitigating and managing the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing, in relation to the bingo sectors, of betting and amusement machines, as well as remote gaming concessionaires.
LUDAM – CUSTOMS, EXCISE AND MONOPOLIES PLACES
The LuDAM application was born from the need to identify, on a map, the places of interest of the Customs and Monopolies Agency and to insert places not registered in the registry also using mobile technology.
In 2021, an access service from external applications was implemented, which allows searching on the map of places registered in the registry, recalling a subject or company code.
EVOLUTION OF THE MONITORING AND ANALYSIS SYSTEM OF TERRITORIAL SMART GAME COLLECTION
The SMART system, offered through points of sale, provides the Customs and Monopolies Agency with information relating to gaming volume data and the number of devices divided into national, provincial, regional and municipal levels; the data is provided both in overall form and divided by type of game. The application supports monopolies and local authorities for verification activities, in order to combat illegal gaming.
CORA AND DATA LAKE ADM
CORA is an Augmented Analytics platform, which allows you to carry out data analysis to support decisions, through natural language interactions. The system architecture is designed to be extended both at a functional level, with the possible addition of modules for new analysis methods, and at a performance management level, with the scalability of micro-service systems and with the use of a data lake.
Furthermore, the CORA system was designed to be fed with data and metadata coming from any type of domain and therefore presents itself as a neutral base platform, which allows the most diverse specializations in terms of data domain. In 2021 the solution was applied to data analysis projects in the ADM field, in the context of games.
