Many a compliance officer has said one of the biggest challenges they face is that they don’t know what they don’t know, a fear traditionally heightened by not having enough visibility into the overall operations of the business. But in a digital age, most the answers are there, buried in an ocean of data, waiting to be discovered.

Once unearthed, that data—the holy grail of compliance—must be deciphered if it’s to unlock any true value. That, in essence, is compliance analytics: It’s the process of gathering all the data the company holds (and even data that it does not hold) and analyzing it using statistical algorithms to mine for patterns and anomalies to uncover things like fraud, policy violations, and other misconduct.

“Compliance analytics is about using data to derive insights from a compliance perspective,” says Seth Rosensweig, a partner at PwC and head of its digital risk, regulatory, and compliance practice.