Julie holds a B.A. 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. An improved product and UX journey delivers a seamless onboarding and training process for our users and admin staff, Streamlining the onboarding process for law enforcement, Designing a user experience for human trafficking investigators to help them solve cases faster than ever. Identifying the best product and UX design to onboard users, so that Spotlight could become the leading machine learning tool for human trafficking investigators. Help Spotlight PA hold the powerful to account with a gift today. Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? 8 0 obj This combination of streamlining workflows and increasing successful victim identification is what has propelled Spotlight to its large user base. "We tested multiple facial-recognition services and found Amazon Rekognition was extremely accurate," says Kristin Boorse, the director of product management for Thorn. The Transportation Industrys Human Trafficking Prevention Toolkit, The Educators Human Trafficking Awareness & Prevention Toolkit, Hospitality Industry and Human Trafficking Toolkit, Visibly Invisible Sex Workers and Sex Trafficking in the EU, Prison Labor: What Happened in the 5 States That Had The Exception Clause On the Ballot, Illuminating a Nexus: The Interplay Between Disaster Events and Exploitation, Preparing for the Known Unknown: Human Trafficking and Disaster Response, Forced to Scam: Cyber Slavery in South Asia, Avoiding Cascading Effects: Why Suspension of The Davis-Bacon Act May Allow Forced/Exploited Labor. Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? From what I gathered, Spotlight was by far the most intuitive and robust, providing a better user experience, despite having a ways to go itself. % ", Spotlight was made to combat a difficult problem, and the data Spotlight handles is unsettling to say the least. With the approval of the Thorn CEO, I led the design of a Spotlight product website and managed our vendors, Media Cause and Digital Reasoning - who were in charge of graphic design and engineering development. A virtual team based in the U.S., Thorn employs 25 people. We'll keep it out of your inbox, promise. Problems of scale like this cry out for automated processes, but another big obstacle is the fact that escort ad data is anything but consistent: traffickers use code words, slang, and reused content to complicate detection by machines. We reached out to her for more information about Spotlight. x Om7 ' The good news is, this can help investigators track down traffickers. The organization's co-leader identifies as: Already have a GuideStar Account? I was given the goal of on-boarding 250 users in the next six months. 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. 10 0 obj Sign in. We hate spam too, unless it's on a sandwich with some eggs. 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. It is the Google Search for combating human sex trafficking. stream Share it with us and well add it to the database! endstream One way for law enforcement agents to catch traffickers and rescue kids would be to identify and investigate escort ads that seem to feature minors, but there are many obstacles to doing this. 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. On AWS, we can also respond to feature requests from officers in weeks or daysnot a level of responsiveness public-sector agencies are used to seeing. Streamlining the onboarding process for law enforcement An infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight has gained, since its national roll-out in February 2015. 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. Thorn Helps Law Enforcement Identify Child Sex-Trafficking Victims Faster on AWS Answering the Challenge Using AWS Need the ability to download nonprofit data and more advanced search options? Copyright 2023 IBTimes LLC. We couldnt recommend it more taking time away from what is hard helps us all sustain our efforts to achieve our goals. Journey map of users navigating htspotlight.com. More From Thorn About the Spotlight Technology. 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. 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. My background in law enforcement and anti-human trafficking was well suited for the needs of Spotlight when I first joined the team. "Abusers had figured out how to use advanced technology to facilitate their exploitation of children," says Sarah Potts, the head of marketing and communications for Thorn, the California-based nonprofit that created Spotlight. Learn More The organization collaborates with law enforcement agencies, tech companies, and nonprofits. Email or Username. Spotlight marketing collateral, based on what law enforcement needed to know. We choose to use it for good. This project was supported by Grant No. Here are samples of the Spotlight product website: home page, request access page, and request demo page. Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? ", In a YouTube video describing Thorns use of technology to fight child pornography and sex trafficking, Thorn Co-founder Ashton Kutcher said, We have to stay on the front cutting edge of that technology, because the criminals, theyre on the front cutting edge., I asked Kelbi what challenges Spotlight faces in keeping at the front of the technological curve. Based on IRS CI's FY 2021 Annual Report, here are five top enforcement priorities that are likely to carry over into 2022: 1. Dont see a resource that you know exists? 5 0 obj After the 2015 Atlanta ICAC Conference, we quickly realized that we needed a better on-boarding process that no longer relied solely on Google Sheets to manage requests. Additionally, many new supervisors inevitably will speak with and encourage employees to ensure they take care of their . "Fighting human trafficking starts where you live. 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. The bad news is that law enforcement just doesnt have the time, energy, or manpower to efficiently pursue the information available online. Thorn is a registered 501(c)(3) organizationEIN: 27-0943677, 2023 Thorn. Finally, we were awarded the 2015 Cloudera Social Impact Award, for the work we did on Spotlight. Additionally, through my stakeholder analysis, I focused on Fox Valley Technical College (FVTC) - a leading law enforcement education center - and the DOJ (both of whom I know, because I currently consult for them on human trafficking). The app does this on a serverless Amazon Web Services (AWS) architecture that includes Amazon Rekognition, a deep learningbased image and video analysis service, and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) C5 instances. Leadership Spotlight: A System Focus. We believe that every child has the right to be safe, to be curious, to be happy. endobj You can view our, Meet the 2019 Skoll Awardees for Social Entrepreneurship. Monthly Yearly One time only. endobj Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. Sign In. One of the most significant obstacles is the massive volume of these ads. Facial analysis in Amazon Rekognition helps investigators find photos of the same person that have been edited to defeat less intelligent image-search engines. 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. We piloted our workshop at the 2015 Atlanta ICAC Conference and received additional feedback on how to improve Spotlight Lab. Click on the link in that email Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues. GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader We do all of this so every child can be safe, curious, and happy. Numbers are to date since the launch of our tool in 2014. I started by conducting a competitive and stakeholder analysis to help with the overall discovery of where we were with our current process. Editor's Pick Leise Hook / For Spotlight PA Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. 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. Thorn was founded in 2012 by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore to combat online child abuse. Initially, they had about 100 users from three U.S. states who were using Spotlight for their human-trafficking investigations. 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. endstream Building is a core value that informs every strategy in our organization. Throughout this process, I worked collaboratively with Media Cause and Digital Reasoning to set timelines and execute. An infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight has gained, since its national roll-out in February 2015. Spotlight is a web-based application that helps law enforcement prioritize leads in their sex trafficking investigations. Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? 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. "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. Trafficking in human beings: protect women and children and focus on sexual exploitation, Desperate for Cash, Afghans Toil in Mines That Are Deadlier Than Ever, Forced to Beg: Tanzanias Trafficked Kids. Our products would not be successful without the partnership we receive from the law enforcement users in every state, at every level of government, and in 37 other countries who use our products, give us feedback, and work tirelessly to identify children. To request technical assistance, training, or other resources through this initiative, agency POCs shouldemail usor call 202-833-1460. 2016-2022 National Policing Institute -Privacy Policy-Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader, Spotlight A Tool to Improve Sex Trafficking Investigations, Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader. THOR Usernames and Passwords must be maintained as confidential by the User and may not be shared. 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 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. Officers can set customized alerts and search Spotlights constantly growing database of ads to aid in their investigations. Education and engagement with the public change risky and abusive behaviors. Key results from our multi-channel strategy led to 19x the projected customer acquisition goal from all 50 states, by the end of 2015 (easily surpassing the initial goal of 250 users in six months). All Rights Reserved, thorn.org, launched Spotlight nationwide in October 2014, Spotlight assisted in the identification of 1,980 children and over 2,186 traffickers. Please check your inbox in order to proceed. Thorn Helps Law Enforcement Identify Child Sex-Trafficking Victims Faster on AWS. Our team built and launched Spotlight in 2014 to improve investigator workflow to find child victims faster. We can use this tool to gather intelligence and plot trends prior to conducting an operation, during the operation we can allocate resources effectively and tighten our investigative vision to have the greatest immediate impact, and following this operation we can couple Spotlight with information gathered in interviews to develop a more complete picture of the scope of Human Trafficking in our area.. This is me at a conference booth, preparing to hold several usability testing sessions with human trafficking investigators. Been edited to defeat less intelligent image-search engines goal of on-boarding 250 users in the next six months supervisors... Care of their, the national leader we do all of this so child. Cloudera Social Impact Award, for the needs of Spotlight when i first joined the team Search constantly... 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