Giving Compass' Take:

• DeliverFund, a group of former CIA, NSA, and police officers are now using AI technology to identify and stop sex trafficking operations in the United States. 

• How can AI technology help law enforcement track and prohibit other illegal activities? How can donors get involved?

• Learn about this women's giving circle that helps to trafficked victims. 

Molly is a “new bunny” in Atlanta and loves her job selling sex, domination, and striptease shows to men. So says an ad on one of the popular websites listing “escorts” or “dates” in the U.S. But chances are Molly has been forced into this work.

“The sad truth is that it’s happening in every city in America,” says Kara Smith, a senior targeting analyst with DeliverFund, a group of former CIA, NSA, special forces, and law enforcement officers who collaborate with law enforcement to bust sex trafficking operations in the U.S.  The online ad for Molly provides clues that she’s performing against her will and is not an independent sex worker who keeps all the money she earns. For instance, she’s depicted in degrading positions, like hunched over on a bed with her rear end facing the camera.

Seasoned experts like Smith can spot these markers, but they no longer have to do it all manually. About a year ago, DeliverFund got an offer from a computer vision startup called XIX to automate the process. The company’s software scrapes images from sites used by sex traffickers and labels objects in images so experts like Smith can quickly search for and review suspect ads. Each sex ad contains an average of three photos, and XIX can scrape and analyze about 4,000 ads per minute, which is about the rate that new ones are posted online.

“What we would have to do without XIX’s abilities would be to just go to the illicit website and scroll for hours and hours,” says Smith. “Their tool is very important because it gives us the ability to sift through millions of data points while looking for information more quickly.

Read the full article about how AI technology can help find sex traffickers by Sean Captain at Fast Company.