Agency/organization collaboration

Hubstream

Hubstream Intelligence Fabric is an automation and data sharing service that powers national and international collaboration and distribution of mission-critical data sets. The service uses scalable and secure cloud technologies to allow massive scale collaboration and fast communication of changes to data sets used by forensics investigators. It is used internationally to track hundreds of millions of data points and is used by tens of thousands of users.

Project VIC International

By working with local law enforcement, KATALYST will improve forensic and victim identification capabilities, and facilitate collaboration between national law enforcement teams and international partners to ensure the safety of children online.

Stop The Traffik, IBM

STOP THE TRAFFIK and our long-term technology partner, IBM, have created the first ever international data hub to facilitate the sharing of information about human trafficking across all industries and sectors. The Traffik Analysis Hub (TAHub) is a partnership that includes financial institutions, NGOs, law enforcement and government agencies who are all unified by the common goal of sharing data to stop human trafficking. Using advanced cognitive technologies developed by IBM, the TAHub will facilitate the sharing of information quickly and easily and combine multiple data sets in one secure system. IBM has donated a significant grant to make this a reality and will use AI technology to quickly analyse and process volumes of data from a variety of sources; while ensuring its security and integrity.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC)

NCMEC’s CyberTipline is the nation’s (USA’s) centralized reporting system for the online exploitation of children. The public and electronic service providers can make reports of suspected online enticement of children for sexual acts, child sexual molestation, child sexual abuse material, child sex tourism, child sex trafficking, unsolicited obscene materials sent to a child, misleading domain names, and misleading words or digital images on the internet. Through funding from Facebook, NCMEC offers the Case Management Tool (CMT) for domestic and international law enforcement who receive and investigate CyberTipline reports.  The CMT allows users to triage, query, organize and refer CyberTipline reports within this web-based interface. NCMEC's Law Enforcement Agency Web Services (LEAWS) allows law enforcement around the world access to CyberTipline report data.  This back-end infrastructure allows report data to be ingested by case management tools to allow quicker access, triage and response. NCMEC's ISP Web Services (ISPWS) allows companies around the world report directly to the CyberTipline. This back-end infrastructure allows for easier and automated reporting by companies around the world taking a stand against child sexual exploitation. While companies based in the US are required by law to report to the CyberTipline, any global company may and is welcome to report to the CyberTipline to better protect children and users on their platforms and services. As part of the CyberTipline response process, NCMEC notifies companies and providers when they are hosting CSAM and no suspect or offender is identified. Our analysts use a specialized interface to send notices daily, calling for these providers to remove the content and it includes a follow-up check to ensure the content has in fact been taken down. In 2021, NCMEC sent over 100,000 notices to companies to remove content from their hosting sites.

Global Emancipation Network

Global Emancipation Network grants Minerva access to organizations with valid counter-trafficking missions in order to host and explore millions of trafficking-related data records and use customized search, alerting, geo-location and other platform capabilities. Using Splunk Enterprise and third-party integrated technologies, Minerva protects case-sensitive information and monitors usage patterns to help keep user information private, safe and secure. Leading public, private and nonprofit organizations have already been accepted to the platform as early users. Minerva is equipped with data-processing capabilities to extract and organize information from a variety of data sources. Capabilities include: Advertisement analysis: Analyzes advertisements from the deep and open web, where most trafficking cases originate, and extracts data such as user, location, account and other identifying information. Image processing tools: Processes images of victims to reduce the time users spend analyzing photographs and manually linking them to advertisements. Minerva integrates image analysis tools to tag photographs with characteristics to expedite database search, and reverse image search to identify similar images. Text analysis tools and natural language processing: Extracts text in images from advertisements and flags correlations with missing persons reports and other valuable information. Multi-tenant system informing trend analysis: Allows all Minerva users to store their information securely on the same database at the same time, enabling secure, multi-agency collaboration on shared investigations.

Interpol

Our International Child Sexual Exploitation (ICSE) image and video database is an intelligence and investigative tool, which allows specialized investigators to share data on cases of child sexual abuse. Using image and video comparison software, investigators are instantly able to make connections between victims, abusers and places. The database avoids duplication of effort and saves precious time by letting investigators know whether a series of images has already been discovered or identified in another country, or whether it has similar features to other images. It also allows specialized investigators from more than 64 countries to exchange information and share data with their colleagues across the world. By analysing the digital, visual and audio content of photographs and videos, victim identification experts can retrieve clues, identify any overlap in cases and combine their efforts to locate victims of child sexual abuse.

Interpol, Inspectoratul General AL Politiei, ZiuZ Visual Intelligence, NCIS Norway

Project CPORT is funded by the European Union. It is a 2-year project that started in Jan 2023. The CPORT portal allows law enforcement agencies to access ICCAM – a database used by national hotlines to process and exchange reports of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) submitted by the public worldwide. The ICCAM platform is hosted by INTERPOL and is an important channel into INTERPOL’s international child sexual exploitation database and list of known domains disseminating severe abuse material (IWOL).

ZiuZ Forensic, Web-IQ, Timelex, DFKI, INHOPE

The AviaTor project is funded by the European Union and is currently in its final phase. The project started in 2019 and will end in 2024. The project aimed to build a prioritisation tool / database for law enforcement processing NCMEC reports (also known as industry reports or Cyber tipline referrals). The AviaTor database provides law enforcement with the tooling to prioritise these reports. AviaTor stands for Augmented Visual Intelligence and Targeted Online Research – meaning that the AviaTor database has the functionality to use visual intelligence as well as OSINT and hash matching to de-duplicate and prioritise reports. AviaTor is currently used by 19 national law enforcement agencies.

Europol

The Europol Platform for Experts (EPE) is a secure, collaborative web platform for specialists in a variety of law enforcement areas.

Interpol

INTERPOL will bring the most advanced technology to investigators of online CSEA through its new DevOps Group Project. The initiative will facilitate research and development by an expert group of investigators, non-governmental organisations, academia, and information technology companies, and extend solutions to specialised officers worldwide via INTERPOL’s secure channels. Headquartered in France, this project has a global reach.