<> 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. The internet has become a widely used place for sex traffickers to advertise. There are many things you can do right now to get started in your community to support local survivor organizations.". Helped officers identify over 10,000 child victims of sexual trafficking and children whose abuse was recorded and distributed. From there, I created an information architecture for the content on the website, put together a website design inspiration board, sketched wireframes by hand and through an online tool - and then wrote the content itself. Thorn was founded in 2012 by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore to combat online child abuse. Throughout this process, I worked collaboratively with Media Cause and Digital Reasoning to set timelines and execute. According to our most recent user survey, Spotlight is helping find more child victims of human trafficking, faster. 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. Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. Empowering law enforcement to collaborate beyond jurisdictions or national borders is a key to success in identifying victims who are moved frequently, or are broadcast through peer-to-peer platforms (P2P) on the dark web from a hidden location. I also conducted guerrilla usability testing to learn about the major pain points of the product itself. A verification email has been sent to you. <>/ExtGState<>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> endobj Law enforcement doesnt have enough time to navigate the online commercial sex market to find children and identify their traffickers. Armed with this data, we worked with our technology partners and law enforcement to understand how these existing digital footprints could assist law enforcement in faster victim identification. 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. Spotlight is a web-based application that helps law enforcement prioritize leads in their sex trafficking investigations. Empowering law enforcement to collaborate beyond jurisdictions or national borders is a key to success in identifying victims who are moved frequently, or are broadcast through peer-to-peer platforms (P2P) on the dark web from a hidden location. endobj We do all of this so every child can be safe, curious, and happy. Leadership Spotlight: Leading with the Pen - The Handwritten Note. Abused children are identified and removed from harm and their abusers are held accountable. Research programs to better understand the role of technology in child sex trafficking. There is a small group of people abusing our children, and we are a large community standing in strong opposition. Sign up and stay up to date with our daily newsletter. "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. Thorn has created a program called Spotlight. AWS support for Internet Explorer ends on 07/31/2022. <> Spotlight Data How often is the information in Spotlight refreshed? $25/mo. endobj Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse, this Web site (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided). Spotlight is a web tool used by law enforcement agencies to more efficiently search the internet for victim and trafficker information. Thorn was founded in 2012 to build technology to defend children from sexual abuse. Numbers are to date since the launch of our tool in 2014. We believe that every child has the right to be safe, to be curious, to be happy. Thorn's Spotlight tool helps law enforcement more quickly identify sex trafficking victims who are advertised online. I get results fast allowing me to to gather important evidence and information in minutes compared to hours., Spotlight is a force multiplier at every stage of the operation. Used by officers in all 50 states and Canada, our web-based tool has helped in identifying 17,092 child victims of human trafficking in the past four years. Most locations in the United States are updated every six hours. We hate spam too, unless it's on a sandwich with some eggs. from UCLA and an M.B.A. from Northwestern. We believe that technology is a tool, one we can use for incredible good. 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. 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. Nothing makes my job more rewarding when a victim says "thank you" and tells me about her rebuilt life. <> Based on IRS CI's FY 2021 Annual Report, here are five top enforcement priorities that are likely to carry over into 2022: 1. Learn More This tool will allow us to conduct faster, more precise investigations that will remove criminals from the street and, most importantly, recover victims. 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. Sign In. Officer Wellness Spotlight: Police Chaplains - An Integral Part of Law Enforcement. 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. Spotlight is a web-based application that helps law enforcement prioritize leads in their sex trafficking investigations. 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). You'll challenge yourself, expand your knowledge on modern slavery, and be equipped to lead your community in the fight to end human trafficking. 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. Easy communication at scale, disposable "burner" phones, and simple photo-editing tools these are just some of the ways the digital, connected world was helping traffickers operate anonymously, one step ahead of the lawespecially those who traffic children for sex online. Spotlight is like a investigative partner in human trafficking investigations. 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. 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. "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. Education and engagement with the public change risky and abusive behaviors. I was given the goal of on-boarding 250 users in the next six months. country every day, law enforcement cannot manually keep up with the volume of ads as they work to identify and track potential victims. Don't recognize this agency? 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). endobj ", Spotlight was made to combat a difficult problem, and the data Spotlight handles is unsettling to say the least. stream endobj The organization collaborates with law enforcement agencies, tech companies, and nonprofits. We piloted our workshop at the 2015 Atlanta ICAC Conference and received additional feedback on how to improve Spotlight Lab. More From Thorn About the Spotlight Technology. But Thorn stays positive in the midst of engaging directly with such data. Half of our 26 person staff are engineers and product managers focused on technology innovation and deployment. We are only one player in a critical ecosystem working on behalf of our children. She previously served as the VP of Marketing/Communications of (RED), where she helped establish the brand as one of the most successful cause marketing initiatives in history, delivering more than $160 million to fight HIV/AIDS across Africa. about GuideStar Pro. We believe that every child has the right to be safe, to be curious, to be happy. Finally, we were awarded the 2015 Cloudera Social Impact Award, for the work we did on Spotlight. Officers, directors, trustees, and key employees. Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? It went from beta in Summer 2014, to extended beta in Fall 2014, to a national roll-out in Winter 2015. 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. User research through interviews, personas, and journey mapping of proactive and reactive searches had already been done prior to my start date. 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. All Rights Reserved. 11 0 obj Matt Damon wants clean water for all, Shailene Woodley was arrested protesting the Dakota Access pipeline, and Ashton Kutcher is the co-founder of a tech company fighting human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Output - describing our activities and reach. Thorn is a registered 501(c)(3) organizationEIN: 27-0943677, 2023 Thorn. <> Email or Username. Our tools take massive amounts of data and turns it into an asset for law enforcement. To help investigators overcome these and other hurdles, Thorn collaborated with AWS and Digital Reasoning, a company specializing in cognitive-computing solutions, to build Spotlight. Spotlight has been used in 21,044 cases identifying 12,328 adults, 5,791 children, and 6,553 traffickers in the past two years. This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ. 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. 8 0 obj Most Popular Stories. Thorn Helps Law Enforcement Identify Child Sex-Trafficking Victims Faster on AWS. my.evidence.com. The Amazon Rekognition team has been very responsive in helping us address any challenges we encounter.". HTS creates a blog, publishes research, and hosts a global resource database on human trafficking and modern-day slavery. $120/yr. Please check your inbox in order to proceed. In 2013, we published the first version of The Thorn Sound Practices Guide, which educates companies about proven practices, tools and resources that exist to identify, remove, report and prevent child sexual abuse material and abusive behavior on their platforms. Sign in or create a new account. Reports from our users show that, with the help of Spotlight, law enforcement is identifying 9 kids per day on average and those who use Spotlight daily see over 60% in time savings. Our web-based tool is now used by over 5,000 officers in all 50 states and Canada. Spotlight helps officers identify child sex-trafficking ads much faster than the old paper-and-pencil methods., Brooke Istook, Director of Strategy and Operations, Thorn. All Rights Reserved. (Don't see an email in your inbox? This combination of streamlining workflows and increasing successful victim identification is what has propelled Spotlight to its large user base. 2023, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. Spotlight marketing collateral, based on what law enforcement needed to know. 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. Leadership Spotlight: Leading Through Tragedy. So much so that we launched Spotlight nationwide in October 2014. Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress. %PDF-1.7 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. Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues. In Wednesdays hearing Kutcher discussed the wide use of the dark web by traffickers, and the difficulties law enforcement officials face in navigating the expanse of content. Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. How does this organization measure their results? All rights reserved. Help us get you more of the nonprofit information you need, including: An email has been sent to the address you provided. Streamlining the onboarding process for law enforcement An infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight has gained, since its national roll-out in February 2015. Email contact available with a Pro subscription. Facial analysis in Amazon Rekognition helps investigators find photos of the same person that have been edited to defeat less intelligent image-search engines. Raise your voice against slavery this December! 10 0 obj Spotlight was designed for law enforcement and prosecutors who investigate human trafficking networks so that victims can be identified and connected to services. 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. Learn more The bad news is that law enforcement just doesnt have the time, energy, or manpower to efficiently pursue the information available online. endobj By the end of my first year at Thorn, I had played a role in developing strategic partnerships with FVTC and the DOJ, designing a Spotlight Lab to effectively train potential and new users, and designing a Spotlight product website and a corresponding on-boarding process. Register. In the last five years, we have reached more than 2.6 million people globally through our child pornography deterrence program. Similarly, The Tote Project, sells their bags, which helps them pay expenses. endobj Hi-fidelity prototypes of key touch points on the Spotlight website. Initially, they had about 100 users from three U.S. states who were using Spotlight for their human-trafficking investigations. I was given the goal of on-boarding 250 users in the next six months. result in increased adoption of Thorns tools, a reduction in time to stop abuse and an increase in risk for perpetrators. Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Need the ability to download nonprofit data and more advanced search options? ", Combating online child sex trafficking is a team effort, according to Istook. " So when I came on, I got caught up to speed by reviewing that material, along with learning the product inside out by receiving, and then conducting, Spotlight demos and online trainings. It is the greatest tool we have in the fight against human trafficking., Special Agent, Wisconsin Human Trafficking Task Force. We build products and tools, partnerships and communities, that support and accelerate the impact and intentions of many people who are dedicated to defending children from sexual abuse. 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. These recent survey results confirm our initial hypothesis that Spotlight has indeed been an asset for law enforcement in earlier victim identification, collaboration and productivity. While learning the ins and outs of Spotlight, and shipping features from our product backlog, I began to focus on ways to improve our on-boarding process for increased acquisition and adoption. to get more GuideStar Nonprofit Profile data today! stream 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. Our team continues to monitor new and emerging trends that will help make sure our tool remains relevant for investigators to do their jobs efficiently and ultimately help the kids we serve. 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. How can people reading this help Thorn fight against child sex trafficking? Top 5 IRS CI Enforcement Priorities. 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