How can people reading this help Thorn fight against child sex trafficking? This project was supported by Grant No. 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. The organization collaborates with law enforcement agencies, tech companies, and nonprofits. Kutchers company Thorn developed software to combat this challenge. As Thorn started work on a tool that could help investigators identify children being exploited, more than 150,000 new escort ads were being posted online every day in the United States. According to our most recent survey, it is helping find more human trafficking victims, faster. Here are samples of the Spotlight product website: home page, request access page, and request demo page. Leadership Spotlight: Leading At-Risk Employees - Law Enforcement and the Addiction Crisis. 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. 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. <>/Metadata 508 0 R/ViewerPreferences 509 0 R>> Finally, we designed marketing collateral to drive further customer acquisition. Thorn developed Spotlight, an app that helps law enforcement close trafficking cases much faster than by using traditional manual methods. 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. To request technical assistance, training, or other resources through this initiative, agency POCs shouldemail usor call 202-833-1460. Helped officers identify over 10,000 child victims of sexual trafficking and children whose abuse was recorded and distributed. Its not uncommon for celebrities to act on a social or political issue theyre passionate about. According to our most recent user survey, Spotlight is helping find more child victims of human trafficking, faster. "It didn't make sense to build our own facial-recognition service when AWS already offers a best-in-breed solution like Amazon Rekognition. Help us get you more of the nonprofit information you need, including: An email has been sent to the address you provided. endobj Our tool Spotlight accelerates law enforcements ability to identify victims of child sex trafficking. endobj 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. Spotlight does investigative work in minutes that can take hours sometimes to collect. More From Thorn About the Spotlight Technology. 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. With only a 25% average response rate, were confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. 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. 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. Finally, we were awarded the 2015 Cloudera Social Impact Award, for the work we did on Spotlight. 10 0 obj Spotlight, on the other hand, is a complex piece of software that doesn't have any sales to help fund its production. In 2012, we learned that 75% of child sex trafficking victims were being bought and sold online. 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. All of our technology partners are making crucial contributions to this fight. 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. <> 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. Kutcher elaborate on the software during the hearing, Its a tool that can be used by law enforcement to prioritize their caseload. Sign In. FOLLOW MORE IBT NEWS ON THE BELOW CHANNELS, IBT Fast Start - Let the best of International News come to you. Supported browsers are Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. 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. 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. 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. We reached out to her for more information about Spotlight. 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. Use of THOR in a manner outside the scope of these Rules is strictly prohibited. "Spotlight was designed based on insights from our first survivor survey. Sign in or create a new account. Spotlight's sophisticated machine-learning capabilities save time for overworked, under-resourced investigators by automatically flagging ads likely to represent at-risk children and keeping law enforcement agents from getting lost in a sea of online data. 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). Julie was raised in Lindsay, California, a small farming community in Californias Central Valley. Somewhere in that pile of data are children who are bought and sold online for sex. 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. <>/ExtGState<>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> 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 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. How can law enforcement sift through massive amounts of data to focus their time on the most vulnerable victims? 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.. The organization collaborates with law enforcement agencies, tech companies, and nonprofits. stream Get free shipping on all Thorne products, connect with health professionals and clients, and read Take 5 Daily to get the latest news in the health and technology industry. 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. Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results. Thorn's Spotlight tool helps law enforcement more quickly identify sex trafficking victims who are advertised online. 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. 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. GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader Thorn Helps Law Enforcement Identify Child Sex-Trafficking Victims Faster on AWS. Output - describing our activities and reach. The Amazon Rekognition team has been very responsive in helping us address any challenges we encounter.". 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. 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.". Help Spotlight PA hold the powerful to account with a gift today. There is a small group of people abusing our children, and we are a large community standing in strong opposition. 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. How does this organization measure their results? Activation of the tech industry helps eliminate abuse content from their platforms. 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. <> A virtual team based in the U.S., Thorn employs 25 people. "Permitted Use" means any use of the Services by an Authorized User for the benefit of Customer solely for supporting his or her law enforcement, social services, academic or other similar professional role, including to detect criminal actions, identify missing/exploited victims, or measure statistical trends surrounding the adult services . Candid has made improvements to the race and ethnicity options. Law enforcement doesnt have enough time to navigate the online commercial sex market to find children and identify their traffickers. We depend on the anti-trafficking community to keep our resource hub up to date. Thorn also works to speed the identification of children featured in sexually abusive material. in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section. Human Trafficking Search (HTS) seeks to raise awareness and help prevent and eliminate human trafficking worldwide. is the CEO of Thorn and has helped grow the organization from inception in 2012. % Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Learn more about Amazon EC2 C5 Instances. 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. Officer Wellness Spotlight: Police Chaplains - An Integral Part of Law Enforcement. 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. We believe that every child has the right to be safe, to be curious, to be happy. 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. 6 0 obj 2021 Dressember | Dressember is a 501 (C)(3) | design by anne agency + marrow design, Grant Partners, Dressember2018, human trafficking, modern day slavery, child advocacy, buisnesses ending slavery and trafficking, BEST, Danyella Wilder. Sign in or create an account to view Form(s) 990 for 2020, 2019 and 2018. The good news is, this can help investigators track down traffickers. 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. $15/mo. <> $120/yr. We believe that technology is a tool, one we can use for incredible good. 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. | Photos Copyright Kay Chernush, ArtWorks for Freedom. He likes Neo-noir films, running and cycling, classic American novels, small venue music shows, and burritos. about GuideStar Pro. Leadership Spotlight: A System Focus. endobj 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. You can view our, Meet the 2019 Skoll Awardees for Social Entrepreneurship. 4 0 obj 2023, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. 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. 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. Spotlight evolved from surveys completed by victims of . 2016-MU-BX-K005 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The organization's co-leader identifies as: Already have a GuideStar Account? <> Don't recognize this agency? Please check your inbox in order to proceed. However, the following six districts 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 There are more than 150,000 escort ads posted every day in this country. 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. It went from beta in Summer 2014, to extended beta in Fall 2014, to a national roll-out in Winter 2015. Build relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Need the ability to download nonprofit data and more advanced search options? Viral child sexual abuse material is removed from the internet to end the cycle of trauma. Spotlight has been used in 21,044 cases identifying 12,328 adults, 5,791 children, and 6,553 traffickers in the past two years. 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. But Thorn stays positive in the midst of engaging directly with such data. SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 6/9/2021. Learn More Sign In. Similarly, The Tote Project, sells their bags, which helps them pay expenses. 5 0 obj This is me at a conference booth, preparing to hold several usability testing sessions with human trafficking investigators. "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. My background in law enforcement and anti-human trafficking was well suited for the needs of Spotlight when I first joined the team. Washington D.C. tax attorney Kevin E. Thorn, Managing Partner of Thorn Law Group, explains. Officers who login weekly report a time savings of 60% in their human trafficking investigations. To design the curriculum for Spotlight Lab, I conducted preliminary research. There are many things you can do right now to get started in your community to support local survivor organizations.". Additionally, many new supervisors inevitably will speak with and encourage employees to ensure they take care of their . Our work has three pillars and one guiding vision. 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. A verification email has been sent to you. COVID-19 fraud schemes have been a top concern for IRS CI and other . It is the Google Search for combating human sex trafficking. 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. BACKGROUND Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. Other Amount: Donate now Yes, accountability matters. 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. Be a part of the impact for our local and global partners by creating your campaign page today! 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