Ecuador's Comptroller General Pilots Real-Time AI Screening of Officials' Asset Declarations

Ecuador's Contraloría General del Estado (CGE), the national audit institution responsible for reviewing roughly 3,400 public entities with a staff of 2,900, began testing an artificial-intelligence tool in January 2024 to screen the mandatory annual patrimonial (asset) declarations filed by public officials.
Announced by Comptroller Mauricio Torres, the tool analyses declarations to detect unusual increases or decreases in officials' declared assets, aiming to let auditors prioritise the small number of high-risk cases rather than reviewing every declaration manually — a traditional audit otherwise requires teams of four to five auditors working several days per case. Initial tests in January 2024 covered former senior officials, including former president Guillermo Lasso.
Since taking office on 28 November 2023, Torres has signed 32 reports alleging criminal responsibility over roughly USD 40 million in irregularities, but these stem from the Contraloría's broader audit activity rather than from the AI tool specifically; reporting on the AI pilot itself states that the initial tests, including of Lasso, yielded no actionable findings and that no concrete results have been obtained from the tool to date. Torres has said scaling the approach would require 300–400 additional auditors and unspecified further funding, to be sought through a popular consultation. No independent evaluation of the tool's accuracy, false-positive rate or data-protection safeguards has been published.

Read the full analysis: https://www.primicias.ec/noticias/politica/inteligencia-artificial-contraloria-patrimonios-funcionarios/

Read the full analysis: https://www.primicias.ec/noticias/politica/inteligencia-artificial-contraloria-patrimonios-funcionarios/