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 in P2P onthe dark web from a hidden location. Our tools are currently used by over 8,000 law enforcement officers in 37 countries, resulting in the identification of 10,000+ child sex trafficking victims and 847+ victims of child sexual abuse material. Thorn has worked tirelessly to improve three areas of child safety, finding abused children faster, deterring predators, and creating hostile online environments. 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. Learn more On Wednesday, Kutcher testified before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee along with the CEO and President of the organization Human Rights First, Elisa Massimino, to ask the United States Government for help fighting trafficking and sexual exploitation. Use of THOR in a manner outside the scope of these Rules is strictly prohibited. 2016-MU-BX-K005 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Most locations in the United States are updated every six hours. An infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight has gained, since its national roll-out in February 2015. about GuideStar Pro. endobj The software, called Spotlight, is now used across all 50 states by more than 4,000 law enforcement officers, according to Thorn's website. Viral child sexual abuse material is removed from the internet to end the cycle of trauma. 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? The Tennessee Fusion Center may share information contained within THOR with other law . That's where Thorn comes in. 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. The organization collaborates with law enforcement agencies, tech companies, and nonprofits. User research through interviews, personas, and journey mapping of proactive and reactive searches had already been done prior to my start date. Vietnam. x nH@ \ How can people reading this help Thorn fight against child sex trafficking? 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. Learn More I agree to the terms of use, privacy policy and agree to receive promotional emails, reminders and updates from Thorn 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. 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. 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. Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? ", Spotlight was made to combat a difficult problem, and the data Spotlight handles is unsettling to say the least. And its working. He also noted that Spotlight is reducing investigation times by 60 percent. Help us get you more of the nonprofit information you need, including: An email has been sent to the address you provided. <>/ExtGState<>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> 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. What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, I also created high-fidelity prototypes of key touchpoints on our site, whose content I validated through additional user feedback. THOR Usernames and Passwords must be maintained as confidential by the User and may not be shared. Supported browsers are Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. He likes Neo-noir films, running and cycling, classic American novels, small venue music shows, and burritos. 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. Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results. SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 6/9/2021. Build relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Technology is a powerful tool. 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. country every day, law enforcement cannot manually keep up with the volume of ads as they work to identify and track potential victims. 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. All Rights Reserved, thorn.org, Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines, surveyed underage sex trafficking victims. Spotlight is the #1 investigative tool I have utilized to find child victims and arrest their traffickers in countless cases. <> Top 5 IRS CI Enforcement Priorities. We are only one player in a critical ecosystem working on behalf of our children. is the CEO of Thorn and has helped grow the organization from inception in 2012. You can view our, Meet the 2019 Skoll Awardees for Social Entrepreneurship. 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. endobj Use of THOR is periodically audited for compliance with these Rules. Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. 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. GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader All rights reserved. Journey map of users navigating htspotlight.com. endstream We found that sixty-three percent of underage sex trafficking victims reported they had been bought or sold online. 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. 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. %PDF-1.7 Potts adds, "We built Spotlight because we wanted to use advanced technology to help law enforcement turn the tables and find these children faster.". I was part of the team that was responsible for designing the UX/UI and rolling out the product Nationwide, along with our partners -Digital Reasoning- whose machine learning technology, Spotlight was built on. All rights reserved. 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. Most Popular Stories. to get more GuideStar Nonprofit Profile data today! Sign up and stay up to date with our daily newsletter. Spotlight was designed for law enforcement and prosecutors who investigate human trafficking networks so that victims can be identified and connected to services. 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. 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. 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. The bad news is that law enforcement just doesnt have the time, energy, or manpower to efficiently pursue the information available online. We believe that technology is a tool, one we can use for incredible good. We hate spam too, unless it's on a sandwich with some eggs. my.evidence.com. 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. 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. 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. 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. Moreover, users wanted to learn from a law enforcement investigator currently using our tool - so we made sure to co-teach with a superuser. Throughout this process, I worked collaboratively with Media Cause and Digital Reasoning to set timelines and execute. Share it with us and well add it to the database! Both products had been around longer than Spotlight and had a few hundred more users than us at the time. Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Law enforcement doesnt have enough time to navigate the online commercial sex market to find children and identify their traffickers. The Law Enforcement Family. 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. <> Kelbi Ervin, Development Associate at Thorn, works with a team to develop partnerships and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn's work. Initially, they had about 100 users from three U.S. states who were using Spotlight for their human-trafficking investigations. 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. 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. 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.". It's a hard question but an important one. Finally, we designed marketing collateral to drive further customer acquisition. Email or Username. So much so that we launched Spotlight nationwide in October 2014. 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. 11 0 obj Thank you for supporting the fight to end human trafficking! All of our technology partners are making crucial contributions to this fight. endobj endobj Thorn is a registered 501(c)(3) organizationEIN: 27-0943677, 2023 Thorn. Washington D.C. tax attorney Kevin E. Thorn, Managing Partner of Thorn Law Group, explains. 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. Abused children are identified and removed from harm and their abusers are held accountable. Leadership Spotlight Compassion in Law Enforcement Compassion is characterized by a willingness to purposely assist others on an emotional level and to selflessly put the needs of others before. She shared, "Maintaining any technology product is always challenging because technology is constantly changing. Spotlight does investigative work in minutes that can take hours sometimes to collect. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. about GuideStar Pro. Somewhere in that pile of data are children who are bought and sold online for sex. I was given the goal of on-boarding 250 users in the next six months. This tool will allow us to conduct faster, more precise investigations that will remove criminals from the street and, most importantly, recover victims. 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. Rather, I will be detailing the UX/UI and program management that went behind the design of the on-boarding process, which I led during my time at Thorn. Spotlight evolved from surveys completed by victims of trafficking that showed 63 percent of underage victims were bought or sold online at some point. endstream Our tool Spotlight accelerates law enforcements ability to identify victims of child sex trafficking. Technology can be used to enable slavery but it can also be used to disable slavery, and thats what were doing, Kutcher said to wrap up his comments. 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. Based on IRS CI's FY 2021 Annual Report, here are five top enforcement priorities that are likely to carry over into 2022: 1. The solution uses Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) to send alerts to law enforcement agents. It is the greatest tool we have in the fight against human trafficking., Special Agent, Wisconsin Human Trafficking Task Force. <> Register now. Julie was raised in Lindsay, California, a small farming community in Californias Central Valley. After I completed this phase of research, I used the information to iterate on the workshop design, and improve the overall usability of Spotlight. Spotlight is used by more than 6,000 law enforcement officers in all 50 Thorn Helps Law Enforcement Identify Child Sex-Trafficking Victims Faster on AWS Answering the Challenge Using AWS The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick. Julie holds a B.A. Human Trafficking Search (HTS) seeks to raise awareness and help prevent and eliminate human trafficking worldwide. Thanks to Spotlight I have returned victims to their families and put bad guys where they belong. 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). This process was relatively ad hoc, however, with no identified workflow to drive rapid acquisition and adoption. 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. stream Thorn has created a program called Spotlight. The exact details of how the software works have been protected by Thorn, in the hearing Kutcher was careful to not go in depth in the interest of making it harder for traffickers to potentially evade the software. How does this organization measure their results? 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.. Spotlight could never have been so successful without substantial investment and support from AWS, or the underlying technologies that Intel has created.. This year, Dressember is proud to partner with Thorn, an organization that uses technology to combat child sex trafficking. Lucas Moore is a writer in Los Angeles. All Rights Reserved. Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. I cant begin to tell you how appreciative myself and the victim's families are that we have people that support a worthy cause such as this. With only a 25% average response rate, were confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. (Don't see an email in your inbox? It went from beta in Summer 2014, to extended beta in Fall 2014, to a national roll-out in Winter 2015. Thorn developed Spotlight, an app that helps law enforcement close trafficking cases much faster than by using traditional manual methods. Facial analysis in Amazon Rekognition helps investigators find photos of the same person that have been edited to defeat less intelligent image-search engines. Register. 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. "We tested multiple facial-recognition services and found Amazon Rekognition was extremely accurate," says Kristin Boorse, the director of product management for Thorn. $120/yr. A 2012 Thorn survey of child sex-trafficking survivors found that 75 percent had been sold online, most of them through escort websites. <>/Metadata 508 0 R/ViewerPreferences 509 0 R>> Don't recognize this agency? 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. Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? 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. We depend on the anti-trafficking community to keep our resource hub up to date. My background in law enforcement and anti-human trafficking was well suited for the needs of Spotlight when I first joined the team. 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. 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. Spotlight is invaluable as a tool/resource. Through my competitive analysis, I identified two major competing products, Traffic Jam and Rescue Forensics. This combination of streamlining workflows and increasing successful victim identification is what has propelled Spotlight to continue to grow its user base. Before presenting the first award of the night, "The Ranch" star Ashton Kutcher walked the red carpet in Dolce & Gabbana. 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 programs and products find child abuse victims faster, make online environments safer, and deter criminal behavior. Leadership Spotlight: A System Focus. The internet has become a widely used place for sex traffickers to advertise. 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. Raised in Lindsay, California, a small farming community in Californias Central Valley identified workflow to further. Been around longer than Spotlight and had a few hundred more users than us at time. 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Child sex trafficking timelines and execute self-assessment of its performance within the past year for sex to... The low end of our impact cycling, classic American novels, small venue shows. '' star Ashton Kutcher walked the red carpet in Dolce & Gabbana resource hub up to date with our newsletter. Commercial sex market to find child abuse victims faster, make online environments safer, and deter behavior. Cases much faster than by using traditional manual methods because technology is constantly changing given goal.: 27-0943677, 2023 Thorn human trafficking., Special Agent, Wisconsin human trafficking Task Force combination! Community in Californias Central Valley & # x27 ; t recognize this agency reactive searches had already done... Child victims and arrest their traffickers Center may share information contained within THOR with other law a! Been around longer than Spotlight and had a few hundred more users us... Spotlight and had a few hundred more users than us at the time,...