childsafe.ai
World’s First AI-Platform Combating Online Child Abuse

‘With great power comes great responsibility,’ is a comic book quote that teaches children to be responsible for their actions. But, oftentimes, children might not even be aware of the problems they are getting into, especially when browsing the internet – a powerful tool that is often misused by criminals. Consider Backpage.com, a website that exploited advertising spaces to lure children into posting on questionable sites, which enable criminals to view and bid on children for illicit activities within their vicinity. Such adversities have plagued the internet ever since the technology became accessible to the masses, creating a sense of fear among parents that have provisioned access to the internet for their children.

Envisioned as a project to end child abuse, Childsafe.ai was developed by Brooklyn based technologist Rob Spectre. It is the world’s first AI platform that is capable of monitoring online conversations and intercepting them for child abuse, mainly when a transaction between a buyer of sex and a seller is about to occur. “We’re trying to address the resource constraints that law enforcement agencies need in order to combat online trafficking,” adds Rob Spectre, the CEO of ChildSafe.ai.

ChildSafe.ai improves the ability to detect and respond to online-abuse by leveraging chatbots. ChildSafe.ai continuously searches for sex trafficking ads on “hidden” commercial websites and explicitly advertised on the dark web to obtain information on buyers and providers of illicit services, along with details pertaining to the pricing and location of the transactions. Consequently, law enforcement authorities can monitor and take action based on those conversations. Apart from that, voice recognition—a type of “vocal fingerprinting”—tools are used to process and uniquely identify the voices of potential buyers and providers of sexual services. Also, a buyer deterrence system—a conversational intelligence for intercepting potential sex buyers—is also integrated with the solution to protect minors online. Upon comprehending the conversations of a potential buyer, ChildSafe.ai delivers a customized deterrence message warning based on the legal and social effects of buying sex, to the parties involved.

In addition to managing communication and deterrence with the buyers, ChildSafe.ai also aggregates information from consumer and telecommunications data sources on potentially suspicious and malicious activities.

We're trying to address the resource constraints that a law enforcement agency has to use in order to combat online trafficking using AI

To further illustrate the core functionality and capability of ChildSafe’s offering, consider the following instances that depict the role played by the company in thwarting criminal activities. Several law-enforcement agencies implemented the ChildSafe’s platform, cumulatively engaging 1,477 potential sex buyers with a total of around 8,500 customized deterrence messages sent recently. With demand deterrence powered by ChildSafe.ai, the law enforcement agencies were able to provide rare insights into the online human trafficking economy with information pertaining to the buying and selling of sex in America. In this scenario, buyers appear to be purchasing with less frequency as the deterrence component of the campaign had reached nationwide, providing unique insight to their demographics and behavior.

Bolstered by such success, law enforcement agencies continue to identify sex trafficking rings and dismantle them, helping analysts to learn the characteristics of human trafficking incidents, by collaborating with ChildSafe. The company’s platform will play a pivotal role in making the internet safer for children, armed with the capability to monitor and model child exploitation risks on the web. These capabilities not only demonstrate ChildSafe’s prowess in combating child abuse, but its technological competency in utilizing the merits of artificial intelligence to solve a real world problem. “When you’re implementing artificial intelligence, the more data you can collect, the more effective that intelligence can be at amplifying your enforcement reach,” concludes Spectre.