Icts and financial crime: An innocent fraud?

The democratizing dimension of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) is a widely accepted proposition. Although this is repeatedly emphasized and expounded by economic, political and social theories that deal with the analysis of the Information Society, its actual significance has been systematically neglected. ICTs are exclusively approached either from the perspective of the globalization of knowledge or from the perspective of economic productivity. However, the democratizing role of ICTs includes an aspect that is examined far less yet is more relevant: their ability to provide greater transparency in the political, economical and social management of societies. This article describes the relationship between the use of ICTs and financial crime; it examines the fraud that, in the author's opinion, is being created by means of ICTs, and emphasizes that greater attention must be paid to ICTs as a tool to fight the lack of transparency and white-collar crime. Copyright © 2007 Sage Publications.