Washington D.C. tax attorney Kevin E. Thorn, Managing Partner of Thorn Law Group, explains. Julie holds a B.A. 8 0 obj x nH@ \ $15/mo. 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. ", Spotlight was made to combat a difficult problem, and the data Spotlight handles is unsettling to say the least. Build relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. 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. 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.. 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. 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. 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? Spotlight takes this massive amount of data and turns it into an asset for law enforcement. country every day, law enforcement cannot manually keep up with the volume of ads as they work to identify and track potential victims. Somewhere in that pile of data are children who are bought and sold online for sex. The solution uses Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) to send alerts to law enforcement agents. Nothing makes my job more rewarding when a victim says "thank you" and tells me about her rebuilt life. 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. (Don't see an email in your inbox? Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results. 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. A GuideStar Pro report containing the following information is available for this organization: This information is only available for subscribers and in Premium reports. 2016-2022 National Policing Institute -Privacy Policy-Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader, Spotlight A Tool to Improve Sex Trafficking Investigations, Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader. A verification email has been sent to you. Spotlight is used by more than 6,000 law enforcement officers in all 50 With just over 20% of users reporting, we are confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. 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. 5 0 obj Spotlight is a web tool used by law enforcement agencies to more efficiently search the internet for victim and trafficker information. Vietnam. Activation of the tech industry helps eliminate abuse content from their platforms. To design the curriculum for Spotlight Lab, I conducted preliminary research. The good news is, this can help investigators track down traffickers. Hi-fidelity prototypes of key touch points on the Spotlight website. Potts adds, "We built Spotlight because we wanted to use advanced technology to help law enforcement turn the tables and find these children faster.". endobj Spotlight's machine-learning models are trained and run on Amazon EC2 C5 instances. stream 3 0 obj stream Our programs and products find child abuse victims faster, make online environments safer, and deter criminal behavior. Technology is a powerful tool. 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. Email contact available with a Pro subscription. FOLLOW MORE IBT NEWS ON THE BELOW CHANNELS, IBT Fast Start - Let the best of International News come to you. Kelbi Ervin, Development Associate at Thorn, works with a team to develop partnerships and identify funding opportunities to sustain Thorn's work. This combination of streamlining workflows and increasing successful victim identification is what has propelled Spotlight to its large user base. Spotlight is invaluable as a tool/resource. The Tennessee Fusion Center may share information contained within THOR with other law . endobj Monthly Yearly One time only. %PDF-1.7 What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, 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. 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. So much so that we launched Spotlight nationwide in October 2014. 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. 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. However, the following six districts But Thorn stays positive in the midst of engaging directly with such data. 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. One of the most significant obstacles is the massive volume of these ads. 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. Kutcher elaborate on the software during the hearing, Its a tool that can be used by law enforcement to prioritize their caseload. Spotlight has been used in 21,044 cases identifying 12,328 adults, 5,791 children, and 6,553 traffickers in the past two years. 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. We depend on the anti-trafficking community to keep our resource hub up to date. There are many things you can do right now to get started in your community to support local survivor organizations.". Click on the link in that email Spotlight, a tool developed by Thorn, is a web-based platform that assists law enforcement in identifying sex trafficking victims faster. 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. "We tested multiple facial-recognition services and found Amazon Rekognition was extremely accurate," says Kristin Boorse, the director of product management for Thorn. Just within the last 12 months investigators reported: Officers who login weekly report a time savings of 60% in their human trafficking investigations. endobj Julie was raised in Lindsay, California, a small farming community in Californias Central Valley. stream 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. 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. 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. Lucas Moore is a writer in Los Angeles. <> An infographic detailing the reach that Spotlight has gained, since its national roll-out in February 2015. 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. With only a 25% average response rate, were confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. Human Trafficking Search (HTS) seeks to raise awareness and help prevent and eliminate human trafficking worldwide. We'll keep it out of your inbox, promise. Leadership Spotlight: Leading Through Tragedy. Officers, directors, trustees, and key employees. I agree to the terms of use, privacy policy and agree to receive promotional emails, reminders and updates from Thorn 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). 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. Learn more about Spotlight. 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. 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. Thanks to Spotlight I have returned victims to their families and put bad guys where they belong. Spotlight was designed for law enforcement and prosecutors who investigate human trafficking networks so that victims can be identified and connected to services. "It didn't make sense to build our own facial-recognition service when AWS already offers a best-in-breed solution like Amazon Rekognition. According to our most recent survey, it is helping find more human trafficking victims, faster. 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. Thorn has created a program called Spotlight. Thorn has created a program called Spotlight. 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. "Fighting human trafficking starts where you live. Finally, we were awarded the 2015 Cloudera Social Impact Award, for the work we did on Spotlight. 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. 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. A virtual team based in the U.S., Thorn employs 25 people. 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