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. endobj Leadership Spotlight: A System Focus. Access is available for free to law enforcement agencies and can be requested at: htspotlight.com. Spotlight is a web-based application that helps law enforcement prioritize leads in their sex trafficking investigations. Learn more about Spotlight. $300/yr. Officers, directors, trustees, and key employees. AWS support for Internet Explorer ends on 07/31/2022. Please check your inbox in order to proceed. $15/mo. One of the most significant obstacles is the massive volume of these ads. Our tools take massive amounts of data and turns it into an asset for law enforcement. (Don't see an email in your inbox? 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. We couldnt recommend it more taking time away from what is hard helps us all sustain our efforts to achieve our goals. 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. <> <> 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. Dont see a resource that you know exists? The good news is, this can help investigators track down traffickers. to get more GuideStar Nonprofit Profile data today! endstream Activation of the tech industry helps eliminate abuse content from their platforms. Law enforcement doesnt have enough time to navigate the online commercial sex market to find children and identify their traffickers. 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. 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. Through my competitive analysis, I identified two major competing products, Traffic Jam and Rescue Forensics. $10/mo. Thorn's Spotlight tool combines publicly available classified ad and online forum data with smart algorithms to help law enforcement identify an average of eight child sex trafficking victims every day. 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. 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. Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. Need the ability to download nonprofit data and more advanced search options? endobj All rights reserved. stream Thank you for supporting the fight to end human trafficking! Kelbi Ervin, Development Associate at Thorn, works with a team to develop partnerships and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn's work. 2023, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. $120/yr. 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. Our product Safer is the first holistic solution for tech companies to detect, remove, and report child sexual abuse material at scale. Here are samples of the Spotlight product website: home page, request access page, and request demo page. The internet has made it easier for children to be bought and sold online. stream Learn more about Amazon EC2 C5 Instances. That's where Thorn comes in. Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. The bad news is that law enforcement just doesnt have the time, energy, or manpower to efficiently pursue the information available online. Help Spotlight PA hold the powerful to account with a gift today. Additionally, many new supervisors inevitably will speak with and encourage employees to ensure they take care of their . After I completed this phase of research, I used the information to iterate on the workshop design, and improve the overall usability of Spotlight. For more information about the impact of Spotlight, check out the infographic below. So much so that we launched Spotlight nationwide in October 2014. 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. about GuideStar Pro. COVID-19 fraud schemes have been a top concern for IRS CI and other . Leadership Spotlight: Leading Through Tragedy. 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. and who do the programs serve? All Rights Reserved. You can view our, Meet the 2019 Skoll Awardees for Social Entrepreneurship. 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. 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. Lucas Moore is a writer in Los Angeles. 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. Finally, we were awarded the 2015 Cloudera Social Impact Award, for the work we did on Spotlight. 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. Sign up and stay up to date with our daily newsletter. Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? However, the following six districts x["Yn Kutcher elaborate on the software during the hearing, Its a tool that can be used by law enforcement to prioritize their caseload. The organization collaborates with law enforcement agencies, tech companies, and nonprofits. 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. 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. I also conducted guerrilla usability testing to learn about the major pain points of the product itself. The software, called Spotlight, is now used across all 50 states by more than 4,000 law enforcement officers, according to Thorn's website. Our programs and products find child abuse victims faster, make online environments safer, and deter criminal behavior. Nothing makes my job more rewarding when a victim says "thank you" and tells me about her rebuilt life. Both products had been around longer than Spotlight and had a few hundred more users than us at the time. "Spotlight was designed based on insights from our first survivor survey. 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. We hate spam too, unless it's on a sandwich with some eggs. Thorn has worked tirelessly to improve three areas of child safety, finding abused children faster, deterring predators, and creating hostile online environments. Technology is a powerful tool. The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick. Our team built and launched Spotlight in 2014 to improve investigator workflow to find child victims faster. 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. endobj My background in law enforcement and anti-human trafficking was well suited for the needs of Spotlight when I first joined the team. Our web-based tool is now used by over 5,000 officers in all 50 states and Canada. 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. Kutchers company Thorn developed software to combat this challenge. 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. "We tested multiple facial-recognition services and found Amazon Rekognition was extremely accurate," says Kristin Boorse, the director of product management for Thorn. 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). We found that sixty-three percent of underage sex trafficking victims reported they had been bought or sold online. Email or Username. 9 0 obj 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. Thorn was founded in 2012 to build technology to defend children from sexual abuse. The software makes tracking down traffickers easier and faster for law enforcement, which can cut down on the amount of time it takes to find victims. 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. A GuideStar Pro report containing the following information is available for this organization: This information is only available for subscribers and in Premium reports. I started by conducting a competitive and stakeholder analysis to help with the overall discovery of where we were with our current process. Be a part of the impact for our local and global partners by creating your campaign page today! Its not uncommon for celebrities to act on a social or political issue theyre passionate about. Register. We'll keep it out of your inbox, promise. 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. Spotlight is a web tool used by law enforcement agencies to more efficiently search the internet for victim and trafficker information. Don't recognize this agency? Our tool Spotlight accelerates law enforcements ability to identify victims of child sex trafficking. Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics, Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools, Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations, Revenue and expense data for the current fiscal year, CEO, Board Chair, and Board of Directors information, *with the ability to download the data for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016. Viral child sexual abuse material is removed from the internet to end the cycle of trauma. Founded in 2012, Thorn builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. 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. 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. Similarly, The Tote Project, sells their bags, which helps them pay expenses. x nH@ \ 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. $120 $180 $300 Other Other. Streamlining the onboarding process for law enforcement An infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight has gained, since its national roll-out in February 2015. "When I asked if Spotlight was available to law enforcement in other countries, Kelbi said no, not yet, "But were constantly evaluating the landscape to understand where it can have impact internationally as well.". 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. Human Trafficking Search (HTS) seeks to raise awareness and help prevent and eliminate human trafficking worldwide. Thorn's Spotlight tool helps law enforcement more quickly identify sex trafficking victims who are advertised online. 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. Thorn was founded in 2012 to build technology to defend children from sexual abuse. All Rights Reserved, thorn.org, Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines, surveyed underage sex trafficking victims. Spotlight marketing collateral, based on what law enforcement needed to know. 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. Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Moreover, users wanted to learn from a law enforcement investigator currently using our tool - so we made sure to co-teach with a superuser. Editor's Pick Leise Hook / For Spotlight PA 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. Nokia's New G22 Phone Allows You To Repair Broken Parts Yourself; A Knack For Storytelling: Should AI Take Over What Makes Us Human? "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. 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. With just over 20% of users reporting, we are confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. This project was supported by Grant No. Spotlight's machine-learning models are trained and run on Amazon EC2 C5 instances. 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. result in increased adoption of Thorns tools, a reduction in time to stop abuse and an increase in risk for perpetrators. According to our most recent user survey, Spotlight is helping find more child victims of human trafficking, faster. 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