It's a hard question but an important one. $300/yr. 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. Our work has three pillars and one guiding vision. Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results. But Thorn stays positive in the midst of engaging directly with such data. Our programs and products find child abuse victims faster, make online environments safer, and deter criminal behavior. This project was supported by Grant No. Spotlight has been used in 21,044 cases identifying 12,328 adults, 5,791 children, and 6,553 traffickers in the past two years. You can view our, Meet the 2019 Skoll Awardees for Social Entrepreneurship. AWS Lambda functions orchestrate Amazon Simple Queueing Service (Amazon SQS) to queue new ads for processing by the app's analytics engine, Digital Reasoning Synthesys. And its working. He also noted that Spotlight is reducing investigation times by 60 percent. 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. 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. 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. 1 0 obj The software, called Spotlight, is now used across all 50 states by more than 4,000 law enforcement officers, according to Thorns website. To design the curriculum for Spotlight Lab, I conducted preliminary research. 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. about GuideStar Pro. We do all of this so every child can be safe, curious, and happy. "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. There are more than 150,000 escort ads posted every day in this country. Most locations in the United States are updated every six hours. in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section. Its not uncommon for celebrities to act on a social or political issue theyre passionate about. Raise your voice against slavery this December! He likes Neo-noir films, running and cycling, classic American novels, small venue music shows, and burritos. Here are samples of the Spotlight product website: home page, request access page, and request demo page. Thorn builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. endobj Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. Lucas Moore is a writer in Los Angeles. Spotlight Data How often is the information in Spotlight refreshed? 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. 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. Spotlight was designed for law enforcement and prosecutors who investigate human trafficking networks so that victims can be identified and connected to services. Thanks to Spotlight I have returned victims to their families and put bad guys where they belong. How can people reading this help Thorn fight against child sex trafficking? ", In addition to the task of staying technologically relevant, Thorn faces another significant challenge: fundraising. 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. Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? 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. In 2012, we learned that 75% of child sex trafficking victims were being bought and sold online. 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. Hi-fidelity prototypes of key touch points on the Spotlight website. ", Combating online child sex trafficking is a team effort, according to Istook. " The internet has become a widely used place for sex traffickers to advertise. 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. 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. To request technical assistance, training, or other resources through this initiative, agency POCs shouldemail usor call 202-833-1460. endstream $15/mo. Kelbi Ervin, Development Associate at Thorn, works with a team to develop partnerships and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn's work. Spotlight's machine-learning models are trained and run on Amazon EC2 C5 instances. 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. Thorn builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. Its a neuralnet, it gets smarter over time, it gets better and it gets more efficient as people use it. I started by conducting a competitive and stakeholder analysis to help with the overall discovery of where we were with our current process. Supported browsers are Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. Please check your inbox in order to proceed. Leadership Spotlight: Leading Through Tragedy. I also created high-fidelity prototypes of key touchpoints on our site, whose content I validated through additional user feedback. THOR Usernames and Passwords must be maintained as confidential by the User and may not be shared. A virtual team based in the U.S., Thorn employs 25 people. All Rights Reserved. BACKGROUND Spotlight is a robust search tool that uses machine learning to help law enforcement identify victims of trafficking online. Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues. <> This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Thorn Helps Law Enforcement Identify Child Sex-Trafficking Victims Faster on AWS. "It didn't make sense to build our own facial-recognition service when AWS already offers a best-in-breed solution like Amazon Rekognition. Education and engagement with the public change risky and abusive behaviors. We hate spam too, unless it's on a sandwich with some eggs. $25/mo. GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center. my.evidence.com. "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.". Helped officers identify over 10,000 child victims of sexual trafficking and children whose abuse was recorded and distributed. 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. "Fighting human trafficking starts where you live. "Spotlight was designed based on insights from our first survivor survey. 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. Most Popular Stories. The solution uses Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) to send alerts to law enforcement agents. Spotlight is invaluable as a tool/resource. Share it with us and well add it to the database! 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. 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). All rights reserved. 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, 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. Dont see a resource that you know exists? stream This combination of streamlining workflows and increasing successful victim identification is what has propelled Spotlight to its large user base. 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. 11 0 obj Hear more from investigators using Spotlight on the front lines. 3 0 obj Sign in. Spotlight is a web-based application that helps law enforcement prioritize leads in their sex trafficking investigations. endobj Password. The rise of the internet has done for child sexual abusers the exact same thing it has done for everyone else - made it easier to share images, and build a community. Learn More 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 could never have been so successful without substantial investment and support from AWS, or the underlying technologies that Intel has created.. A GuideStar Pro report containing the following information is available for this organization: This information is only available for subscribers and in Premium reports. 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. Spotlight has been used in 21,044 cases identifying 12,328 adults, 5,791 children, and 6,553 traffickers in the past two years. Leadership Spotlight: Leading At-Risk Employees - Law Enforcement and the Addiction Crisis. The success of Spotlight would not be possible without the countless hours that investigators spend looking for our kids; the technology partners who influenced and encouraged its development and our donors. 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. endstream $180/yr. 7 0 obj All Rights Reserved. We piloted our workshop at the 2015 Atlanta ICAC Conference and received additional feedback on how to improve Spotlight Lab. $120/yr. After the 2015 Atlanta ICAC Conference, we quickly realized that we needed a better on-boarding process that no longer relied solely on Google Sheets to manage requests. After the sting operation, we sat down with FVTC and the DOJ to put together the curriculum for Spotlight Lab. Kelbi Ervin, Development Associate at Thorn, works with a team to develop partnerships and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn's work. Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? I also conducted guerrilla usability testing to learn about the major pain points of the product itself. An infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight has gained, since its national roll-out in February 2015. x nH@ \

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