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Sydney-based Nuix Pty Ltd donated its document analysis program
to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)
to sift through the millions of leaked documents from Panamanian
law firm Mossack Fonseca.
The Panama Papers include 2.6 terabytes of data including
emails, images, PDFs and other documents and raise questions
about the financial arrangements of high profile politicians and
public figures through the use of offshore companies.
"What we've done is enabled the ICIJ to do what they couldn't do
in probably months or years," Nuix vice president Angela Bunting
told Reuters in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
By using the software, the Washington-based ICIJ was able to
make millions of scanned documents, some decades old,
text-searchable and help its network of journalists cross
reference Mossack Fonseca's clients across these documents.
The massive leak has prompted global investigations into
suspected illegal activities by the world's wealthy and
powerful. Mossack Fonseca, the firm at the center of the leaks ,
denies any wrongdoing.
The use of advanced document and data analysis technology shows
the growing importance of technology's role in helping
journalists make better sense of increasingly bigger news
discoveries.
Started 10 years ago by a software developer who spent his
university days figuring out ways to simplify email, Nuix says
it now sells its wares in 65 countries to a client list that
includes the United Nations, the United States Secret Service
and numerous government departments and law enforcement
agencies.
"We're being used in some very unusual areas of the world,"
Bunting said, adding that Nuix software is used to investigate
child pornography rings, people trafficking and high-end tax
evasion.
The company is privately owned and intentionally kept itself
from knowing the contents of the millions of documents the ICIJ
scoured using Nuix software. A Nuix consultant provided advice
to ICIJ about hardware and workflow based on equivalent
scenarios rather than specific knowledge of the data.
"It's how most of our business is conducted," said Bunting.
"We deal with many of the law enforcement and government
agencies around the world. We can't know anything of what
they're doing."
(Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Sam Holmes)
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