Initially, they had about 100 users from three U.S. states who were using Spotlight for their human-trafficking investigations. 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. Use of THOR is periodically audited for compliance with these Rules. Spotlight evolved from surveys completed by victims of trafficking that showed 63 percent of underage victims were bought or sold online at some point. Sign In. My background in law enforcement and anti-human trafficking was well suited for the needs of Spotlight when I first joined the team. endobj <>/Metadata 508 0 R/ViewerPreferences 509 0 R>> Spotlight is invaluable as a tool/resource. 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. (Don't see an email in your inbox? Thorn was founded in 2012 to build technology to defend children from sexual abuse. COVID-19 fraud schemes have been a top concern for IRS CI and other . "We tested multiple facial-recognition services and found Amazon Rekognition was extremely accurate," says Kristin Boorse, the director of product management for Thorn. I also created high-fidelity prototypes of key touchpoints on our site, whose content I validated through additional user feedback. 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? How can people reading this help Thorn fight against child sex trafficking? Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? stream 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. He likes Neo-noir films, running and cycling, classic American novels, small venue music shows, and burritos. The organization collaborates with law enforcement agencies, tech companies, and nonprofits. Please check your inbox in order to proceed. Moreover, users wanted to learn from a law enforcement investigator currently using our tool - so we made sure to co-teach with a superuser. We depend on the anti-trafficking community to keep our resource hub up to date. 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. Officers who login weekly report a time savings of 60% in their human trafficking investigations. The Law Enforcement Family. This year, Dressember is proud to partner with Thorn, an organization that uses technology to combat child sex trafficking. According to our most recent survey, it is helping find more human trafficking victims, faster. The software, called Spotlight, is now used across all 50 states by more than 4,000 law enforcement officers, according to Thorns website. about GuideStar Pro. The good news is, this can help investigators track down traffickers. and who do the programs serve? 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. This process was relatively ad hoc, however, with no identified workflow to drive rapid acquisition and adoption. Most locations in the United States are updated every six hours. x Om7 ' 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. ", In addition to the task of staying technologically relevant, Thorn faces another significant challenge: fundraising. endobj Please continue to fund this very important resource; it saves lives. 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). Thorn was founded in 2012 by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore to combat online child abuse. How can law enforcement sift through massive amounts of data to focus their time on the most vulnerable victims? A GuideStar Pro report containing the following information is available for this organization: This information is only available for subscribers and in Premium reports. Our brand NoFiltr reaches youth directly with prevention and support messaging to help them better recognize online grooming. This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ. Spotlight evolved from surveys completed by victims of . 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. 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). 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. 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. Spotlight, on the other hand, is a complex piece of software that doesn't have any sales to help fund its production. Candid has made improvements to the race and ethnicity options. Spotlight's machine-learning models are trained and run on Amazon EC2 C5 instances. xKk@aZp &@z(=6M5h6N0]|V^c DY: $ I~^_az{}n{wN2r0 G$?Df'QK(s[,3o@o Ecw]\Q sIIb4`W*4)zka0Xm?adhga$P0A*+F#JExueU\|%|Q(2TW,+ h[ QFSv`eDShjJ} x|c' $wGdX308@Ng/UTf Initially, they had about 100 users from three U.S. states who were using Spotlight for their human-trafficking investigations. Register now. 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. A 2012 Thorn survey of child sex-trafficking survivors found that 75 percent had been sold online, most of them through escort websites. "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.". Spotlight is the #1 investigative tool I have utilized to find child victims and arrest their traffickers in countless cases. 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. We do all of this so every child can be safe, curious, and happy. endstream 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. endobj The organization collaborates with law enforcement agencies, tech companies, and nonprofits. is the CEO of Thorn and has helped grow the organization from inception in 2012. 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. Be a part of the impact for our local and global partners by creating your campaign page today! Kelbi Ervin, Development Associate at Thorn, works with a team to develop partnerships and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn's work. stream All rights reserved. HTS creates a blog, publishes research, and hosts a global resource database on human trafficking and modern-day slavery. Nothing makes my job more rewarding when a victim says "thank you" and tells me about her rebuilt life. Research programs to better understand the role of technology in child sex trafficking. Most Popular Stories. We believe that technology is a tool, one we can use for incredible good. Here are samples of the Spotlight product website: home page, request access page, and request demo page. I agree to the terms of use, privacy policy and agree to receive promotional emails, reminders and updates from Thorn The organization's co-leader identifies as: Already have a GuideStar Account? 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. The internet has become a widely used place for sex traffickers to advertise. <> We reached out to her for more information about Spotlight. And its working. He also noted that Spotlight is reducing investigation times by 60 percent. What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, "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. Email contact available with a Pro subscription. Before presenting the first award of the night, "The Ranch" star Ashton Kutcher walked the red carpet in Dolce & Gabbana. 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.. Raise your voice against slavery this December! All of our technology partners are making crucial contributions to this fight. 2023, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. We hate spam too, unless it's on a sandwich with some eggs. The Tennessee Fusion Center may share information contained within THOR with other law . $300/yr. With just over 20% of users reporting, we are confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. Streamlining the onboarding process for law enforcement An infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight has gained, since its national roll-out in February 2015. This combination of streamlining workflows and increasing successful victim identification is what has propelled Spotlight to continue to grow its user base. Our team built and launched Spotlight in 2014 to improve investigator workflow to find child victims faster. Our web-based tool is now used by over 5,000 officers in all 50 states and Canada. According to our most recent user survey, Spotlight is helping find more child victims of human trafficking, faster. However, the following six districts Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. "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. 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. Julie holds a B.A. Officers can set customized alerts and search Spotlights constantly growing database of ads to aid in their investigations. We choose to use it for good. 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. Learn more Email or Username. 2016-MU-BX-K005 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. We believe that every child has the right to be safe, to be curious, to be happy. Thorn builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. 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. 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. 7 0 obj Additionally, many new supervisors inevitably will speak with and encourage employees to ensure they take care of their . 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 . 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. In 2012, we learned that 75% of child sex trafficking victims were being bought and sold online. Our tool Spotlight accelerates law enforcements ability to identify victims of child sex trafficking. 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. Spotlight has been used in 21,044 cases identifying 12,328 adults, 5,791 children, and 6,553 traffickers in the past two years. It's a hard question but an important one. I started by conducting a competitive and stakeholder analysis to help with the overall discovery of where we were with our current process. stream <> 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. This combination of streamlining workflows and increasing successful victim identification is what has propelled Spotlight to its large user base. $180/yr. Don't recognize this agency? There is a small group of people abusing our children, and we are a large community standing in strong opposition. 2 0 obj Copyright IBTimes 2023. Journey map of users navigating htspotlight.com. Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. 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 tool will allow us to conduct faster, more precise investigations that will remove criminals from the street and, most importantly, recover victims. Identifying the best product and UX design to onboard users, so that Spotlight could become the leading machine learning tool for human trafficking investigators. 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. We found that sixty-three percent of underage sex trafficking victims reported they had been bought or sold online. 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. 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. With only a 25% response rate, were confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? You can view our, Meet the 2019 Skoll Awardees for Social Entrepreneurship. about GuideStar Pro. ", Spotlight was made to combat a difficult problem, and the data Spotlight handles is unsettling to say the least. Help Spotlight PA hold the powerful to account with a gift today. | Photos Copyright Kay Chernush, ArtWorks for Freedom. x nH@ \ Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. 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. Somewhere in that pile of data are children who are bought and sold online for sex. Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? 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. Spotlight is a web-based application that helps law enforcement prioritize leads in their sex trafficking investigations. Spotlight is a web tool used by law enforcement agencies to more efficiently search the internet for victim and trafficker information. Spotlight is like a investigative partner in human trafficking investigations. 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