Dont see a resource that you know exists? He likes Neo-noir films, running and cycling, classic American novels, small venue music shows, and burritos. 8 0 obj 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. 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. It is the Google Search for combating human sex trafficking. Law enforcement doesnt have enough time to navigate the online commercial sex market to find children and identify their traffickers. In the last five years, we have reached more than 2.6 million people globally through our child pornography deterrence program. Kelbi Ervin, Development Associate at Thorn, works with a team to develop partnerships and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn's work. Output - describing our activities and reach. Equipped more than 8,500 law enforcement officers across 2,000 law enforcement agencies in 35 countries with its tools, Tools speed investigation time by up to 65 percent, 2022 Skoll Foundation. Thank you for supporting the fight to end human trafficking! Thorn is a registered 501(c)(3) organizationEIN: 27-0943677, 2023 Thorn. 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. 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. "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.". Additionally, many new supervisors inevitably will speak with and encourage employees to ensure they take care of their . Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. There are more than 150,000 escort ads posted every day in this country. 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. Thanks to Spotlight I have returned victims to their families and put bad guys where they belong. 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. Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? 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. Founded in 2012, Thorn builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. Thorn builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. 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. It went from beta in Summer 2014, to extended beta in Fall 2014, to a national roll-out in Winter 2015. Law enforcement doesnt have enough time to navigate the online commercial sex market to find children and identify their traffickers. 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. BACKGROUND Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. Spotlight is a web-based application that helps law enforcement prioritize leads in their sex trafficking investigations. 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. 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. This is me at a conference booth, preparing to hold several usability testing sessions with human trafficking investigators. 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. <>/ExtGState<>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> But Thorn stays positive in the midst of engaging directly with such data. So much so that we launched Spotlight nationwide in October 2014. Kutchers company Thorn developed software to combat this challenge. Vietnam. 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. endstream 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. 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. To request technical assistance, training, or other resources through this initiative, agency POCs shouldemail usor call 202-833-1460. 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. 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. stream and who do the programs serve? Finally, we designed marketing collateral to drive further customer acquisition. This project was supported by Grant No. 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. 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). Leadership Spotlight: Leading At-Risk Employees - Law Enforcement and the Addiction Crisis. All rights reserved. Nothing makes my job more rewarding when a victim says "thank you" and tells me about her rebuilt life. FOLLOW MORE IBT NEWS ON THE BELOW CHANNELS, IBT Fast Start - Let the best of International News come to you. Streamlining the onboarding process for law enforcement An infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight has gained, since its national roll-out in February 2015. 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. COVID-19 fraud schemes have been a top concern for IRS CI and other . about GuideStar Pro. I agree to the terms of use, privacy policy and agree to receive promotional emails, reminders and updates from Thorn According to our most recent survey, it is helping find more human trafficking victims, faster. 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 good news is, this can help investigators track down traffickers. Throughout this process, I worked collaboratively with Media Cause and Digital Reasoning to set timelines and execute. Kelbi Ervin, Development Associate at Thorn, works with a team to develop partnerships and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn's work. Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues. $25/mo. stream ", Combating online child sex trafficking is a team effort, according to Istook. " 1 0 obj A virtual team based in the U.S., Thorn employs 25 people. Over the past year, reports show that we are identifying on average 8 kids per dayand that law enforcement who use Spotlight daily see a 65% time savings in their process. Most locations in the United States are updated every six hours. endobj 6 0 obj Candid has made improvements to the race and ethnicity options. All Rights Reserved. Most Popular Stories. <> Email contact available with a Pro subscription. Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the SMART Office. Numbers are to date since the launch of our tool in 2014. Registration is open for Dressember 2018 and fundraising has already started! Finally, we were awarded the 2015 Cloudera Social Impact Award, for the work we did on Spotlight. about GuideStar Pro. Raise your voice against slavery this December! Our brand NoFiltr reaches youth directly with prevention and support messaging to help them better recognize online grooming. 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. Julie holds a B.A. endobj Please check your inbox in order to proceed. This year, Dressember is proud to partner with Thorn, an organization that uses technology to combat child sex trafficking. After the sting operation, we sat down with FVTC and the DOJ to put together the curriculum for Spotlight Lab. 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. Use of THOR is periodically audited for compliance with these Rules. Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? 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. 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. $300/yr. User research through interviews, personas, and journey mapping of proactive and reactive searches had already been done prior to my start date. 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. I get results fast allowing me to to gather important evidence and information in minutes compared to hours. My background in law enforcement and anti-human trafficking was well suited for the needs of Spotlight when I first joined the team. x["Yn 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. Thorn was founded in 2012 by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore to combat online child abuse. Copyright IBTimes 2023. Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. Lucas Moore is a writer in Los Angeles. Here are samples of the Spotlight product website: home page, request access page, and request demo page. Monthly Yearly One time only. 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. x Om7 ' To design the curriculum for Spotlight Lab, I conducted preliminary research. We believe that every child has the right to be safe, to be curious, to be happy. We reached out to her for more information about Spotlight. Our programs and products find child abuse victims faster, make online environments safer, and deter criminal behavior. 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. Sign in or create a new account. <> Spotlight evolved from surveys completed by victims of . Due to the sensitivity of the product itself, I will not be using this case study to highlight the product design or development of Spotlight, the tool. Learn More A 2012 Thorn survey of child sex-trafficking survivors found that 75 percent had been sold online, most of them through escort websites. Officers who login weekly report a time savings of 60% in their human trafficking investigations. 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. I also created high-fidelity prototypes of key touchpoints on our site, whose content I validated through additional user feedback. Somewhere in that pile of data are children who are bought and sold online for sex. "With the flexibility and easy integration of AWS, we can experiment and prototype new products like Spotlight that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive to develop. Spotlight could never have been so successful without substantial investment and support from AWS, or the underlying technologies that Intel has created.. We have resource guides for researchers across the globe on all forms of trafficking for various stakeholders. Officers can set customized alerts and search Spotlights constantly growing database of ads to aid in their investigations. <> There are many things you can do right now to get started in your community to support local survivor organizations.". 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. This tool will allow us to conduct faster, more precise investigations that will remove criminals from the street and, most importantly, recover victims. Copyright 2023 IBTimes LLC. Help Spotlight PA hold the powerful to account with a gift today. <> In addition to a powerful team of experts, 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. 2016-MU-BX-K005 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. "Spotlight was designed based on insights from our first survivor survey. Be a part of the impact for our local and global partners by creating your campaign page today! Officer Wellness Spotlight: Police Chaplains - An Integral Part of Law Enforcement. Abused children are identified and removed from harm and their abusers are held accountable. Spotlight Data How often is the information in Spotlight refreshed? s#fDr$G#;3s/U@q~}NHO. We are dedicated to ending child sex trafficking and eliminating child sexual abuse from the internet, and we wont stop until every child can simply be a kid. Share it with us and well add it to the database! Officers, directors, trustees, and key employees. Build relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. This combination of streamlining workflows and increasing successful victim identification is what has propelled Spotlight to continue to grow its user base. Learn more about Spotlight. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Thorn's Spotlight tool helps law enforcement more quickly identify sex trafficking victims who are advertised online. We do all of this so every child can be safe, curious, and happy. Spotlight takes this massive amount of data and turns it into an asset for law enforcement. $15/mo. Editor's Pick Leise Hook / For Spotlight PA To find children faster, they have created two online tools, Spotlight and Solis, for law enforcement agencies across the world, for free. The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick. 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. Click on the link in that email Expanded partnerships with law enforcement. my.evidence.com. $120/yr. "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. 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. Julie was raised in Lindsay, California, a small farming community in Californias Central Valley. 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. (Don't see an email in your inbox? 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. It's a hard question but an important one. endobj And its working. He also noted that Spotlight is reducing investigation times by 60 percent. How does this organization measure their results? 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 was designed for law enforcement and prosecutors who investigate human trafficking networks so that victims can be identified and connected to services. country every day, law enforcement cannot manually keep up with the volume of ads as they work to identify and track potential victims. Sign up and stay up to date with our daily newsletter. Sign In. Human Trafficking Search (HTS) seeks to raise awareness and help prevent and eliminate human trafficking worldwide. According to our most recent survey, it is helping find more human trafficking victims, faster. Similarly, The Tote Project, sells their bags, which helps them pay expenses. Spotlight is invaluable as a tool/resource. We hate spam too, unless it's on a sandwich with some eggs. Spotlight, a tool developed by Thorn, is a web-based platform that assists law enforcement in identifying sex trafficking 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. Journey map of users navigating htspotlight.com. Sign in. Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results. Spotlight, on the other hand, is a complex piece of software that doesn't have any sales to help fund its production. Hi-fidelity prototypes of key touch points on the Spotlight website. 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. 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. The organization's co-leader identifies as: Already have a GuideStar Account? endobj <> from UCLA and an M.B.A. from Northwestern. Spotlight is a web tool used by law enforcement agencies to more efficiently search the internet for victim and trafficker information. Learn more A virtual team based in the U.S., Thorn employs 25 people. Learn more about Amazon EC2 C5 Instances. I was given the goal of on-boarding 250 users in the next six months. Be identified and removed from the internet for victim and trafficker information was raised in Lindsay, California, small... Search ( HTS ) seeks to raise awareness and help prevent and eliminate human trafficking search HTS! And stay up to date with our daily newsletter Amazon EC2 C5 instances offer a memory-to-vCPU ratio that ideal! Than 150,000 escort ads posted every day in this country Spotlight takes massive... 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To a national roll-out in February 2015 infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight is a team effort, to... To hours right now to get started in your community to support local organizations. That serve our diverse communities schemes have been a top concern for CI... We do all of this so every child has the right to be curious, to be safe,,... And cycling, classic American novels, small venue music shows, and.! The next six months ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and?. Opportunities to sustain Thorn 's work front lines be a part of the nonprofit information you need, including an! To find children and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn 's work website. And journey mapping of proactive and reactive searches had already been done prior to my Start.. 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