thorn spotlight law enforcement login

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. <> This process was relatively ad hoc, however, with no identified workflow to drive rapid acquisition and adoption. After the sting operation, we sat down with FVTC and the DOJ to put together the curriculum for Spotlight Lab. Click here to resend it.). <> He likes Neo-noir films, running and cycling, classic American novels, small venue music shows, and burritos. 4 0 obj Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? For this phase of the project, I used the data I already gathered from Spotlight users to create a journey for those seeking to learn more about Spotlight, request a demo, request access, and to log in. Numbers are to date since the launch of our tool in 2014. 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 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. THOR Usernames and Passwords must be maintained as confidential by the User and may not be shared. 2023, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. With over 150,000 ads posted online every day, we know that law enforcement doesnt have enough time to navigate the online commercial sex market to find children and identify their traffickers. %PDF-1.7 The Amazon Rekognition team has been very responsive in helping us address any challenges we encounter.". At Dressember, we release a line of dresses each year, but those products are sold. Sign In. 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. Spotlight was designed for law enforcement and prosecutors who investigate human trafficking networks so that victims can be identified and connected to services. Spotlight is like a investigative partner in human trafficking investigations. Using this data the company worked with law enforcement to understand how such digital footprints could lead to the discovery of victims and their traffickers. 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. Spotlight evolved from surveys completed by victims of . <> s#fDr$G#;3s/U@q~}NHO. There are more than 150,000 escort ads posted every day in this country. 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. "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. The solution uses Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) to send alerts to law enforcement agents. 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. Password. Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. HTS creates a blog, publishes research, and hosts a global resource database on human trafficking and modern-day slavery. With just over 20% of users reporting, we are confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. Spotlight is invaluable as a tool/resource. Its not uncommon for celebrities to act on a social or political issue theyre passionate about. Activation of the tech industry helps eliminate abuse content from their platforms. All rights reserved. Kelbi Ervin, Development Associate at Thorn, works with a team to develop partnerships and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn's work. 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. <> Building is a core value that informs every strategy in our organization. Research programs to better understand the role of technology in child sex trafficking. The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick. endobj 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. Spotlight is a web tool used by law enforcement agencies to more efficiently search the internet for victim and trafficker information. 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. 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. country every day, law enforcement cannot manually keep up with the volume of ads as they work to identify and track potential victims. I also conducted guerrilla usability testing to learn about the major pain points of the product itself. Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. Spotlight, on the other hand, is a complex piece of software that doesn't have any sales to help fund its production. stream Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues. Our programs and products find child abuse victims faster, make online environments safer, and deter criminal behavior. Earlier in her career she worked for Motorolas mobile phone division and helped launch HELIO, a mobile virtual network operator. 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. I get results fast allowing me to to gather important evidence and information in minutes compared to hours. Spotlight could never have been so successful without substantial investment and support from AWS, or the underlying technologies that Intel has created.. 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. Leadership Spotlight: Leading Through Tragedy. Spotlight is a web-based application that helps law enforcement prioritize leads in their sex trafficking investigations. $180/yr. Throughout this process, I worked collaboratively with Media Cause and Digital Reasoning to set timelines and execute. Access is available for free to law enforcement agencies and can be requested at: htspotlight.com. "Spotlight was designed based on insights from our first survivor survey. Kutchers company Thorn developed software to combat this challenge. Spotlight, a tool developed by Thorn, is a web-based platform that assists law enforcement in identifying sex trafficking victims faster. 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. Our team built and launched Spotlight in 2014 to improve investigator workflow to find child victims faster. 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 was made to combat a difficult problem, and the data Spotlight handles is unsettling to say the least. $15/mo. in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section. 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. "Fighting human trafficking starts where you live. ", In a YouTube video describing Thorns use of technology to fight child pornography and sex trafficking, Thorn Co-founder Ashton Kutcher said, We have to stay on the front cutting edge of that technology, because the criminals, theyre on the front cutting edge., I asked Kelbi what challenges Spotlight faces in keeping at the front of the technological curve. In 2012, we learned that 75% of child sex trafficking victims were being bought and sold online. "It didn't make sense to build our own facial-recognition service when AWS already offers a best-in-breed solution like Amazon Rekognition. I started by conducting a competitive and stakeholder analysis to help with the overall discovery of where we were with our current process. endobj Register. Copyright Human Trafficking Search 2023. Most locations in the United States are updated every six hours. The Law Enforcement Family. Use of THOR in a manner outside the scope of these Rules is strictly prohibited. All Rights Reserved. Thorn Helps Law Enforcement Identify Child Sex-Trafficking Victims Faster on AWS Answering the Challenge Using AWS 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 Nokia's New G22 Phone Allows You To Repair Broken Parts Yourself; A Knack For Storytelling: Should AI Take Over What Makes Us Human? endobj 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? To find children faster, they have created two online tools, Spotlight and Solis, for law enforcement agencies across the world, for free. All of our technology partners are making crucial contributions to this fight. We do all of this so every child can be safe, curious, and happy. Education and engagement with the public change risky and abusive behaviors. How can people reading this help Thorn fight against child sex trafficking? 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. Thorn Helps Law Enforcement Identify Child Sex-Trafficking Victims Faster on AWS. I was given the goal of on-boarding 250 users in the next six months. Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse, this Web site (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided). In the last five years, we have reached more than 2.6 million people globally through our child pornography deterrence program. 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. AWS support for Internet Explorer ends on 07/31/2022. Candid has made improvements to the race and ethnicity options. Click on the link in that email Leadership Spotlight: Leading At-Risk Employees - Law Enforcement and the Addiction Crisis. Sign in or create an account to view Form(s) 990 for 2020, 2019 and 2018. This year, Dressember is proud to partner with Thorn, an organization that uses technology to combat child sex trafficking. "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.". 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. 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. Lucas Moore is a writer in Los Angeles. 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. This project was supported by Grant No. All Rights Reserved. Spotlight is the #1 investigative tool I have utilized to find child victims and arrest their traffickers in countless cases. 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. 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. We have resource guides for researchers across the globe on all forms of trafficking for various stakeholders. COVID-19 Fraud. Email or Username. $25/mo. After I completed this phase of research, I used the information to iterate on the workshop design, and improve the overall usability of Spotlight. 9 0 obj Help us get you more of the nonprofit information you need, including: An email has been sent to the address you provided. Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. I joined a superuser with the Louisiana State Police on a human trafficking sting operation in New Orleans, to observe how they used Spotlight in the field. Leadership Spotlight: A System Focus. A verification email has been sent to you. 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. For more information about the impact of Spotlight, check out the infographic below. Thorn was founded in 2012 by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore to combat online child abuse. 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). Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results. With only a 25% average response rate, were confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. 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. my.evidence.com. All Rights Reserved, thorn.org, Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines, surveyed underage sex trafficking victims. 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. Thorn builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. Thorn has worked tirelessly to improve three areas of child safety, finding abused children faster, deterring predators, and creating hostile online environments. <>/ExtGState<>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> Before presenting the first award of the night, "The Ranch" star Ashton Kutcher walked the red carpet in Dolce & Gabbana. x nH@ \ 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. Copyright IBTimes 2023. But Thorn stays positive in the midst of engaging directly with such data. Thorn was founded in 2012 to build technology to defend children from sexual abuse. My background in law enforcement and anti-human trafficking was well suited for the needs of Spotlight when I first joined the team. 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. 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. 11 0 obj A 2012 Thorn survey of child sex-trafficking survivors found that 75 percent had been sold online, most of them through escort websites. You'll challenge yourself, expand your knowledge on modern slavery, and be equipped to lead your community in the fight to end human trafficking. to get more GuideStar Nonprofit Profile data today! We believe that every child has the right to be safe, to be curious, to be happy. And its working. He also noted that Spotlight is reducing investigation times by 60 percent. 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. Spotlight evolved from surveys completed by victims of trafficking that showed 63 percent of underage victims were bought or sold online at some point. It is the Google Search for combating human sex trafficking. Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. 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. about GuideStar Pro. To design the curriculum for Spotlight Lab, I conducted preliminary research. 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. Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Here are samples of the Spotlight product website: home page, request access page, and request demo page. Spotlight has been used in 21,044 cases identifying 12,328 adults, 5,791 children, and 6,553 traffickers in the past two years. The organization collaborates with law enforcement agencies, tech companies, and nonprofits. Need the ability to download nonprofit data and more advanced search options? Our tools take massive amounts of data and turns it into an asset for law enforcement. There are many things you can do right now to get started in your community to support local survivor organizations.". Be a part of the impact for our local and global partners by creating your campaign page today! Our tool Spotlight accelerates law enforcements ability to identify victims of child sex trafficking. Spotlight helps officers identify child sex-trafficking ads much faster than the old paper-and-pencil methods., Brooke Istook, Director of Strategy and Operations, Thorn. According to our most recent user survey, Spotlight is helping find more child victims of human trafficking, faster. endstream endobj Sign in. We choose to use it for good. Officers can set customized alerts and search Spotlights constantly growing database of ads to aid in their investigations. Similarly, The Tote Project, sells their bags, which helps them pay expenses. Both products had been around longer than Spotlight and had a few hundred more users than us at the time. 2 0 obj Our work has three pillars and one guiding vision. All rights reserved. The bad news is that law enforcement just doesnt have the time, energy, or manpower to efficiently pursue the information available online. Our product Safer is the first holistic solution for tech companies to detect, remove, and report child sexual abuse material at scale. stream Washington D.C. tax attorney Kevin E. Thorn, Managing Partner of Thorn Law Group, explains. There is a small group of people abusing our children, and we are a large community standing in strong opposition. about GuideStar Pro. Initially, they had about 100 users from three U.S. states who were using Spotlight for their human-trafficking investigations. 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). Streamlining the onboarding process for law enforcement An infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight has gained, since its national roll-out in February 2015. User research through interviews, personas, and journey mapping of proactive and reactive searches had already been done prior to my start date. 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 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.. "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. 5 0 obj My background in law enforcement and anti-human trafficking was well suited for the needs of Spotlight when I first joined the team. endobj 7 0 obj Officers who login weekly report a time savings of 60% in their human trafficking investigations. 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. Our brand NoFiltr reaches youth directly with prevention and support messaging to help them better recognize online grooming. Most Popular Stories. stream How can law enforcement sift through massive amounts of data to focus their time on the most vulnerable victims? 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. One of the most significant obstacles is the massive volume of these ads. 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. 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. 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. 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. Somewhere in that pile of data are children who are bought and sold online for sex. To request technical assistance, training, or other resources through this initiative, agency POCs shouldemail usor call 202-833-1460. 10 0 obj 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 rights reserved. Share it with us and well add it to the database! This combination of streamlining workflows and increasing successful victim identification is what has propelled Spotlight to its large user base. Dont see a resource that you know exists? We found that sixty-three percent of underage sex trafficking victims reported they had been bought or sold online. Spotlight's machine-learning models are trained and run on Amazon EC2 C5 instances. $120 $180 $300 Other Other. FOLLOW MORE IBT NEWS ON THE BELOW CHANNELS, IBT Fast Start - Let the best of International News come to you. is the CEO of Thorn and has helped grow the organization from inception in 2012. Law enforcement doesnt have enough time to navigate the online commercial sex market to find children and identify their traffickers.

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