Keeping the FOCUS on Data Analytics and False Claims

Recently, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a False Claims Act (FCA) initiative to enhance its relationships with data miners—individuals and entities who evaluate publicly available data for indicia of fraud subject to qui tam litigation. The volume of FCA qui tam lawsuits has been increasing dramatically, and a significant percentage of this increase is attributable to data miners. The Fraud Oversight through Careful Use of Statistics initiative (FOCUS Initiative) appears to be the DOJ’s effort to identify and collaborate with the most reliable data miners and direct resources to the FCA cases with the greatest probability of recovery. In light of the DOJ’s prioritization of FCA litigation and collaboration with data miners, companies that produce publicly available data and receive federal funding should consider proactive efforts to scrutinize their own data to be able to respond to data miners’ narratives or to assess self-disclosure opportunities.

Key Takeaways

• Prophylactically, companies exposed to potential FCA qui tam claims that generate publicly available data should consider regular evaluations of their data to assess the risks that data miners and the DOJ might interpret such data as signaling fraud and supporting FCA claims. _ Reactively, companies that suspect that they are targets of data miners and the DOJ for data-based FCA claims should consider building defensive narratives grounded in publicly available and private corporate data, documents, and witnesses. _ Whether addressing the risks proactively or reactively, companies should consider leveraging “the most frontier artificial intelligence (AI) models” because, according to the DOJ, the data miners are doing the same.
• Companies may leverage internal data analytics and legal resources. If companies lack such in-house resources, external consultants and counsel can provide the necessary skillsets to address offensive data mining.

The FOCUS Initiative

The Civil Division’s FOCUS Initiative aims to “materially strengthen [the] working relationship with [certain] whistleblowers,” namely high-quality data miners. These data miners purport to use data analytics, AI, and other technologies to examine publicly available data—often submitted to federal agencies in connection with payment claims—to detect irregularities that would otherwise go unnoticed. Data miners maintain that they can spot signals that might indicate the presence of fraud.

Keeping the FOCUS on Data Analytics and False Claims

Through the FOCUS Initiative, these data miners may meet with the Civil Fraud Section to “discuss their capabilities and outline why and how their data signals reliably correlate to fraud.” The FOCUS Initiative does not compel such a meeting as “a pre-filing requirement;” however, such meetings may come with significant benefits. The DOJ “will prioritize working with data miners that have demonstrated an investment in pre-filing diligence and commitment to analytical rigor, familiarity with program rules, and legally sufficient allegations.”

The FOCUS Initiative marks both a significant declaration by the DOJ of the purported value of data analytics in identifying viable FCA claims and a degree of public-private collaboration in an arena traditionally reserved for government investigators and whistleblowers with personal knowledge.

The FOCUS Initiative arose out of the “rapid increase in the number of qui tam complaints ... driven by [data miners] ..., rather than the insiders who have traditionally served as [FCA] relators.” In 2025, relators filed a record-breaking 1,297 FCA suits. This marked a 33% increase from 2024—itself, a record-breaking year with 980 qui tam suits. With approximately 800 suits filed to date, this year is on pace to set another record. Data miners’ activities account for the pronounced increase in cases year over year. Since 2024, data miners have filed almost 50% of the qui tam cases, a dramatically increased percentage than previously. The DOJ perceived a need to prioritize its use of resources in connection with this expanding universe of qui tam claims.

The DOJ offered some notes of caution in its FOCUS Initiative announcement. First, the announcement emphasizes repeatedly that it seeks to collaborate only with high-quality data miners who can demonstrate “pre-filing diligence and commitment to analytical rigor, familiarity with program rules, and legally sufficient allegations.” This is a tacit acknowledgement that data miners, like whistleblowers, sometimes bring infirm claims. Second, the announcement also stresses the importance of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b)’s heightened pleading standards for fraud claims. Data miner qui tam plaintiffs must plead facts alleging fraud with particularity. Third, the announcement alerts data miners to the need to “articulate how the data, in combination with other available evidence, suggests both scienter and falsity.”

The FOCUS initiative must be regarded as one element of the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-fraud ecosystem. President Trump has issued numerous executive orders purporting to address fraud, waste, and abuse. Notable among these, in a March 16, 2026 executive order, President Trump announced the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a whole-of-government effort to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse within federal benefits programs. In support of this task force and pursuant to a January 8, 2026 announcement, on April 7, 2026, the DOJ formally created the National Fraud Enforcement Division, a significant realignment of DOJ structures, personnel, and financial resources to “investigate and prosecute those who steal or fraudulently misuse taxpayer dollars.” Prior to this realignment, the DOJ itself articulated numerous anti-fraud priorities and heralded its FCA successes in its annual reports.

How to Prepare for Being in FOCUS: Mind Your Data Because Your Data Is Being Mined

To the extent that there was a time when recipients of federal funding that produced publicly available data could take a set-it-and-forget-it approach, those days are a thing of the past. Such companies must be mindful that data miners are scrutinizing their publicly available data for potential FCA qui tam lawsuits. In this context, these companies are well advised to:

• Evaluate whether they are obligated to publish their current universe of publicly available data—that is, consider publishing only what is required and no more;
• Use data analytics, including AI tools, to assess whether their publicly available data are subject to interpretations that could support an inference of fraud;
• Develop data to counter innocuous anomalies that may be characterized as nefarious;
• Build evidentiary records—separate from data analytics—that can counter the inferred indicia of fraud that data analytics might generate;
• Where appropriate, work with counsel and consultants on the above and other defenses to FCA claims based on data mining instead of knowledgeable whistleblowers; and
• Where appropriate, consider beating the data miners to the DOJ by making voluntary self-disclosures in ways that minimize the consequences.

In the era of big data, companies that engage in proactive data hygiene and thoughtful documentation will be better equipped for the increased scrutiny from data miners and the government than companies that only address data reactively.