Somewhere in that pile of data are children who are bought and sold online for sex. 4 0 obj This tool will allow us to conduct faster, more precise investigations that will remove criminals from the street and, most importantly, recover victims. <> Thorn developed Spotlight, an app that helps law enforcement close trafficking cases much faster than by using traditional manual methods. Spotlight, a tool developed by Thorn, is a web-based platform that assists law enforcement in identifying sex trafficking victims faster. But Thorn stays positive in the midst of engaging directly with such data. That's where Thorn comes in. It went from beta in Summer 2014, to extended beta in Fall 2014, to a national roll-out in Winter 2015. Lucas Moore is a writer in Los Angeles. Thorn is a team of issue experts, business leaders, and engineers who build technology to defend children from sexual abuse. "Permitted Use" means any use of the Services by an Authorized User for the benefit of Customer solely for supporting his or her law enforcement, social services, academic or other similar professional role, including to detect criminal actions, identify missing/exploited victims, or measure statistical trends surrounding the adult services . The National Policing Institute, formerly known as the National Police Foundation, is an independent non-profit, non-partisan institution based in Arlington, Virginia that has been dedicated to advancing policing through innovation and science for over half a century, and works to translate those findings to practice through technical assistance, training, and dissemination. More From Thorn About the Spotlight Technology. We recently asked human trafficking investigators and prosecutors how Spotlight has impacted their investigations within the last 12 months here are a few highlights: It is the Google Search for combating human sex trafficking. This website is funded through a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Spotlight Data How often is the information in Spotlight refreshed? We couldnt recommend it more taking time away from what is hard helps us all sustain our efforts to achieve our goals. Spotlight evolved from surveys completed by victims of trafficking that showed 63 percent of underage victims were bought or sold online at some point. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Click on the link in that email Used by law enforcement in all 50 states and Canada, Spotlight has assisted in over 25,000 cases in 2019 alone and has helped to identify nearly 5,500 child sex trafficking victims and nearly 6,500 child sex traffickers. Help Spotlight PA hold the powerful to account with a gift today. Spotlight evolved from surveys completed by victims of . For more information about the impact of Spotlight, check out the infographic below. We depend on the anti-trafficking community to keep our resource hub up to date. 6 0 obj 5 0 obj All of our technology partners are making crucial contributions to this fight. Officers, directors, trustees, and key employees. Officers who login weekly report a time savings of 60% in their human trafficking investigations. Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. According to our most recent user survey, Spotlight is helping find more child victims of human trafficking, faster. COVID-19 Fraud. Other Amount: Donate now Yes, accountability matters. She shared, "Maintaining any technology product is always challenging because technology is constantly changing. Leadership Spotlight: Leading with the Pen - The Handwritten Note. After I completed this phase of research, I used the information to iterate on the workshop design, and improve the overall usability of Spotlight. This year, Dressember is proud to partner with Thorn, an organization that uses technology to combat child sex trafficking. <> GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader endobj x nH@ \ Viral child sexual abuse material is removed from the internet to end the cycle of trauma. We do all of this so every child can be safe, curious, and happy. Our team built and launched Spotlight in 2014 to improve investigator workflow to find child victims faster. When we surveyed underage sex trafficking victims, 3 out of 4 who entered the life in the past decade said they had been advertised online at some point in their trafficking situation. With over 150,000 ads posted online every day, we know that law enforcement doesnt have enough time to navigate the online commercial sex market to find children and identify their traffickers. "Our law enforcement partners say Spotlight helps officers identify child sex-trafficking ads much faster than the old paper-and-pencil methods," says Brooke Istook, director of strategy and operations at Thorn. Amazon Rekognition, which uses deep learning to accurately identify objects, people, activities, and events in images and videos stored in Amazon S3, is at the heart of one of Spotlights most crucial capabilities. How can people reading this help Thorn fight against child sex trafficking? ", Spotlight was made to combat a difficult problem, and the data Spotlight handles is unsettling to say the least. All Rights Reserved. Using this data the company worked with law enforcement to understand how such digital footprints could lead to the discovery of victims and their traffickers. Technology is a powerful tool. (Don't see an email in your inbox? 1 0 obj Initially, they had about 100 users from three U.S. states who were using Spotlight for their human-trafficking investigations. The insights we gained - was not only beneficial for the overall product development - but for the workshop design itself (I would continue to observe Spotlight usage at future sting operations, including Operation Cross Country, in which hundreds of juveniles were identified and pimps were arrested). $15/mo. Our tools take massive amounts of data and turns it into an asset for law enforcement. It is the greatest tool we have in the fight against human trafficking., Special Agent, Wisconsin Human Trafficking Task Force. I gathered additional information through phone call interviews with customers who were familiar with Spotlight and the other two products to get a sense of what features and design they liked. AWS Lambda functions orchestrate Amazon Simple Queueing Service (Amazon SQS) to queue new ads for processing by the app's analytics engine, Digital Reasoning Synthesys. Spotlight's sophisticated machine-learning capabilities save time for overworked, under-resourced investigators by automatically flagging ads likely to represent at-risk children and keeping law enforcement agents from getting lost in a sea of online data. I joined a superuser with the Louisiana State Police on a human trafficking sting operation in New Orleans, to observe how they used Spotlight in the field. my.evidence.com. Hopeful that investigators could use technology to identify victims more quickly, we tested an early version of a potential tool among key agencies with promising results. Thorn Helps Law Enforcement Identify Child Sex-Trafficking Victims Faster on AWS Answering the Challenge Using AWS Thorn has created a program called Spotlight. Kelbi Ervin, Development Associate at Thorn, works with a team to develop partnerships and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn's work. Editor's Pick Leise Hook / For Spotlight PA Thorn is a registered 501(c)(3) organizationEIN: 27-0943677, 2023 Thorn. Sign in. My background in law enforcement and anti-human trafficking was well suited for the needs of Spotlight when I first joined the team. A virtual team based in the U.S., Thorn employs 25 people. Thorn was founded in 2012 to build technology to defend children from sexual abuse. Sign In. Spotlight's machine-learning models are trained and run on Amazon EC2 C5 instances. Spotlight is a web tool used by law enforcement agencies to more efficiently search the internet for victim and trafficker information. Nokia's New G22 Phone Allows You To Repair Broken Parts Yourself; A Knack For Storytelling: Should AI Take Over What Makes Us Human? Thorn runs the countrys most extensive online deterrence program, communicating directly with people searching for CSAM, disrupting their sense of anonymity and encouraging them to seek help. Hi-fidelity prototypes of key touch points on the Spotlight website. Research programs to better understand the role of technology in child sex trafficking. Based on IRS CI's FY 2021 Annual Report, here are five top enforcement priorities that are likely to carry over into 2022: 1. Thorn builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. To date, Spotlight has helped officers reduce investigative time by up to 65% and has helped identify 18,119 trafficking victims (including 5,791 children) and 6,553 traffickers. Eventually, I reached out to them, and we agreed to partner and co-teach a Spotlight Lab workshop at major conferences across the Nation to drive awareness and adoption. Kelbi writes, "We are philanthropically funded, which means that donations and grants like yours directly fund our products that we provide to law enforcement for free. We'll keep it out of your inbox, promise. We are only one player in a critical ecosystem working on behalf of our children. Julie was raised in Lindsay, California, a small farming community in Californias Central Valley. Similarly, The Tote Project, sells their bags, which helps them pay expenses. The internet has become a widely used place for sex traffickers to advertise. GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center. The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick. A leading assumption was that users wanted to learn by doing, so we used the outcomes from the New Orleans sting operation as a hands-on case study. With only a 25% average response rate, were confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. You can have your biggest impact in the community where you live thats where you know the most about the environment, the opportunities, the dangers. A 2012 Thorn survey of child sex-trafficking survivors found that 75 percent had been sold online, most of them through escort websites. FOLLOW MORE IBT NEWS ON THE BELOW CHANNELS, IBT Fast Start - Let the best of International News come to you. 7 0 obj endobj %PDF-1.7 Spotlights analytics pipeline begins with a third-party solution that ingests more than 100,000 new online escort ads each day, storing text and image data as objects in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) buckets. To find children faster, they have created two online tools, Spotlight and Solis, for law enforcement agencies across the world, for free. Click here to resend it.). $25/mo. Since 2016 alone, Spotlight has helped officers in the United States and Canada open more than 21,000 trafficking cases and identify about 18,000 victims, including more than 6,000 children. Stay up to date with our daily newsletter, testified before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee, evolved from surveys completed by victims of trafficking, Ashton Kutcher Blew A Kiss To John McCain. I agree to the terms of use, privacy policy and agree to receive promotional emails, reminders and updates from Thorn endobj Spotlight has been used in 21,044 cases identifying 12,328 adults, 5,791 children, and 6,553 traffickers in the past two years. So much so that we launched Spotlight nationwide in October 2014. Our product Safer is the first holistic solution for tech companies to detect, remove, and report child sexual abuse material at scale. Spotlight's machine-learning models analyze new escort ads in real time and use intelligent image analysis and natural-language processing (NLP) to flag those that match risk profiles developed in cooperation with law enforcement agencies. Get free shipping on all Thorne products, connect with health professionals and clients, and read Take 5 Daily to get the latest news in the health and technology industry. He likes Neo-noir films, running and cycling, classic American novels, small venue music shows, and burritos. The internet has made it easier for children to be bought and sold online. SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 6/9/2021. <>/Metadata 508 0 R/ViewerPreferences 509 0 R>> "Fighting human trafficking starts where you live. The rise of the internet has done for child sexual abusers the exact same thing it has done for everyone else - made it easier to share images, and build a community. One aspect of law enforcement often discussed during an in-briefing or at a recruiting event is the idea that by joining the organization, you are being accepted into that agency's "family.". Most locations in the United States are updated every six hours. This is me at a conference booth, preparing to hold several usability testing sessions with human trafficking investigators. We choose to use it for good. Identifying the best product and UX design to onboard users, so that Spotlight could become the leading machine learning tool for human trafficking investigators. x Om7 ' I also created high-fidelity prototypes of key touchpoints on our site, whose content I validated through additional user feedback. Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants (CIRI) founded in 1918, is a statewide nonprofit human services agency that addresses the need to provide new immigrants and refugees in Connecticut with services to help them become self-sufficient, integrated and contributing members of the community. Email or Username. Telehealth Startup Cerebral To Cut 15% Of Staff, PlayStation's New Game To Feature Shiba Inu As 'Savior' Of 'Humanity', China Aims To Reach 'World-Leading Levels' Of Tech By 2035: CCP. The organization's co-leader identifies as: Already have a GuideStar Account? Our programs and products find child abuse victims faster, make online environments safer, and deter criminal behavior. The Amazon Rekognition team has been very responsive in helping us address any challenges we encounter.". <> Half of our 26 person staff are engineers and product managers focused on technology innovation and deployment. We believe that every child has the right to be safe, to be curious, to be happy. 3 0 obj Sign up and stay up to date with our daily newsletter. Output - describing our activities and reach. There are many things you can do right now to get started in your community to support local survivor organizations.". It's a hard question but an important one. Use of THOR is periodically audited for compliance with these Rules. 9 0 obj Try a low commitment monthly plan today. Powered by 3.0 GHz Intel Xeon Scalable processors, Amazon EC2 C5 instances offer a memory-to-vCPU ratio that is ideal for demanding inference applications. $300/yr. from UCLA and an M.B.A. from Northwestern. From there the software developed further to better analyze and track data that can lead to building strong cases against traffickers and finding the victims. "We tested multiple facial-recognition services and found Amazon Rekognition was extremely accurate," says Kristin Boorse, the director of product management for Thorn. endstream 2016-MU-BX-K005 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn more about Spotlight. We believe that technology is a tool, one we can use for incredible good. | Photos Copyright Kay Chernush, ArtWorks for Freedom. about GuideStar Pro. Spotlight has been used in 21,044 cases identifying 12,328 adults, 5,791 children, and 6,553 traffickers in the past two years. At Dressember, we release a line of dresses each year, but those products are sold. To request technical assistance, training, or other resources through this initiative, agency POCs shouldemail usor call 202-833-1460. The organization collaborates with law enforcement agencies, tech companies, and nonprofits. There are over 150,000 escort ads posted daily, and Spotlight takes this massive amount of data and turns it into an asset for law enforcement. Per Kristin, "The genesis of Spotlight started after we conducted a sex trafficking Survivor Survey in 2012, seeking to learn directly from victims how technology was used throughout their trafficking situation. To design the curriculum for Spotlight Lab, I conducted preliminary research. Initially, they had about 100 users from three U.S. states who were using Spotlight for their human-trafficking investigations. We work with the sharpest minds from tech, non-profit, government and law enforcement to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material, stand up to child traffickers and uncover new kinds of abuse . Spotlight, which is offered free of charge to law enforcement and allied organizations, uses Amazon Cognito to provide a secure user directory that can scale to millions of users. Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. Founded in 2012, Thorn builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. I started by conducting a competitive and stakeholder analysis to help with the overall discovery of where we were with our current process. All rights reserved. My goal was to not only design a workshop that increased adoption but to build a tool that added value for current users through an intuitive user experience and user interface - which would then translate to more victims identified in a shorter amount of time. The objective of Spotlight is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of domestic sex trafficking investigations and increase the number of children who are identified and connected with help resources. A virtual team based in the U.S., Thorn employs 25 people. Our web-based tool is now used by over 5,000 officers in all 50 states and Canada. "Day to day, we strive to balance hard work with care for ourselves and each other so that we have the resiliency we need to keep fighting," Kelbi writes, "At Thorn, we are invested in a team wellness plan where we carve out time to discuss how were feeling and how were approaching our work. Click here to return to Amazon Web Services homepage, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) C5 instances, Identified 18,000 victims, including over 6,000 children. Kutcher elaborate on the software during the hearing, Its a tool that can be used by law enforcement to prioritize their caseload. Spotlight, on the other hand, is a complex piece of software that doesn't have any sales to help fund its production. result in increased adoption of Thorns tools, a reduction in time to stop abuse and an increase in risk for perpetrators. Thanks to Spotlight I have returned victims to their families and put bad guys where they belong. With just over 20% of users reporting, we are confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. The solution uses Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) to send alerts to law enforcement agents. There is a small group of people abusing our children, and we are a large community standing in strong opposition. Thorn also works to speed the identification of children featured in sexually abusive material. As Thorn started work on a tool that could help investigators identify children being exploited, more than 150,000 new escort ads were being posted online every day in the United States. Furthermore, by making sure users were engaged and properly trained, user surveys have shown that Spotlight has since been able to reduce the time it takes to investigate a human trafficking case by 43%, identified close to 2,000 children, and over 2,000 traffickers. Key employees in a critical ecosystem working on behalf of our impact Justice Assistance, make online Safer... 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