Measuring the Effect of Fraud on Data-Quality Dimensions

Data preprocessing moves the data from raw to ready for analysis. Data resulting from fraud compromises the quality of the data and the resulting analysis. It can exist in datasets such that it goes undetected since it is included in the analysis. This study proposed a process for measuring the effect of fraudulent data during data preparation and its possible influence on quality. The five-step process begins with identifying the business rules related to the business process(s) affected by fraud and their associated quality dimensions. This is followed by measuring the business rules in the specified timeframe, detecting fraudulent data, cleaning them, and measuring their quality after cleaning. The process was implemented in the case of occupational fraud within a hospital context and the illegal issuance of underserved sick leave. The aim of the application is to identify the quality dimensions that are influenced by the injected fraudulent data and how these dimensions are affected. This study agrees with the existing literature and confirms its effects on timeliness, coherence, believability, and interpretability. However, this did not show any effect on consistency. Further studies are needed to arrive at a generalizable list of the quality dimensions that fraud can affect.