A provider of AI tools for law enforcement, governmental organizations, and businesses claims that investigators are using them to find and halt internet crimes against children (ICAC).

In a blog post published on Tuesday, Voyager Labs described how many ICAC task groups use resources like “topic query searches” to locate web content about crimes against children.

According to Voyager, these technologies may uncover accounts that are trading child sex abuse material, identify and track down the perpetrators using those accounts, find possible victims, and gather vital information to aid law enforcement in building a case against the offenders.

It was also mentioned that this technique is frequently quite quick, occasionally producing usable data in just a few seconds.

The “topic query lexicon” is yet another resource utilized by the investigators mentioned by Voyager. It resembles a code book or translation dictionary. illicit investigators may add their understanding of slang, terminology, and emojis used in illicit conversations to the lexicon, which AI algorithms can use to look for references to criminal behavior online.

Jason Webb, Director of National Investigations for Voyager, who contributed to the blog, described how the lexicon functions as a common database that allows different sorts of professionals to use one another’s expertise in their study.

We Know Where You Live

Performing network analysis with artificial intelligence is also advantageous. Voyager observed that if there are pages where child sex abuse material has been trafficked, AI can look at who interacts with those pages to conduct network analysis, determining whether several offenders are associated with ICAC rings.

These investigations have the potential to unearth criminal enterprises of sophisticated groups that engage in a variety of unlawful operations because it is usual for gangs to operate ICAC activities and human trafficking, it said.

Some systems, Voyager continued, can identify the precise location of illicit activity. Sharing geodata with smaller departments may be one of the most important factors in reducing ICAC, according to Voyager, as it allows agencies using this new technology to share their findings.

Network analysis can be used to identify criminal behavior as well as possible victims, according to Voyager. Voyager added that as soon as law enforcement and families are informed that criminals have tried to contact a child, appropriate action may be taken to protect the youngster from harm.

According to Voyager, much of this type of AI research may be completed using only open-source intelligence, which is freely accessible to the public without a search warrant or specific authorization. The business, however, has already faced criticism for its methods of data acquisition.

In January 2023, Meta filed a complaint in California’s federal court against Voyager Labs, claiming the latter had inappropriately scraped information from the platforms and user profiles of Facebook and Instagram.

According to Meta, Voyager generated more than 38,000 fictitious profiles and exploited them to scrape “viewable profile information” for 600,000 Facebook users. According to allegations, Voyager sold the data to the highest bidder after selling its scraping tools to businesses looking to perform covert social media surveillance.

Voyager claims that the case lacks validity, exposes a fundamental ignorance of how the in question software products function, and, most importantly, is harmful to public safety in the United States and around the world.

Filtering Nude Photos

Through tools like Microsoft’s Photo DNA and Google’s Hash Matching API, artificial intelligence may also detect images of child sex abuse. These services employ a database of content known to contain child sex abuse to find that content when it is shared or stored online.

Joshua Buxbaum, co-founder and chief growth officer at Irvine, California-based WebPurify, a cloud-based web filtering and online child protection service, said: “However, that only solves the issue of known content or fuzzy matches, and though some companies are building models to catch new child sexual abuse material.

According to him, “as with all AI models, nothing is by any means perfect, and humans are needed in the loop to verify the content, which is not ideal from a mental health perspective,” he told netflixwab.

Additionally, there are stand-alone parental control programs like Canopy that can filter incoming and outgoing nudity-containing photos. According to Canopy CMO Yaron Litwin, “It alerts parents if it seems like their children are sexting.”

This can stop those photographs from ending up in the wrong hands and offers parents the chance to warn their kids about the risks involved in what they are doing before it’s too late, he told netflixwab.

According to Chris Hauk, consumer privacy champion at Pixel Privacy, a publisher of consumer security and privacy guides, “Social platforms allow predators to send photos while also requesting photos from the minor.” This enables predators to demand cash or other types of photographs from children while threatening to inform the parents if the child disobeys.

According to Litwin, “sextortion” the use of children’s naked photographs to demand additional images or money has climbed 322% yearly in February.

According to him, some sextortion cases have led to the victims’ suicides.

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Digital Education Vital for Child Protection

Social media content containing child sex abuse is still an issue.

“Our analysis shows social media account removals related to child abuse and safety are steadily rising on most platforms,” Paul Bischoff, privacy advocate at Comparitech, a website that offers evaluations, guidance, and information on consumer security solutions, told netflixwab.

He highlighted a Comparitech research that showed that removals of content for child exploitation in the first nine months of 2022 were roughly equivalent to all removals in 2021. There were narratives that were similar for Discord, Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat.

According to Litwin, “This is a really serious problem that is only getting worse over time.” “Today’s parents did not grow up in the same digital world as their kids, and they are frequently unaware of the variety of threats their kids face on a daily basis.”

The most crucial action that can be taken to keep children safe online, according to Isabelle Vladoiu, founder of the US Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C., is to educate them.

“We empower children to make informed decisions and protect themselves from exploitation by providing comprehensive digital literacy programs, such as digital citizenship training, raising awareness about online risks, and teaching children to recognize red flags,” she said to netflixwab.

“Real-life examples have shown that when children are educated about trafficking risks and online safety, they become more empowered to stand against torture and exploitation,” the speaker said, “fostering a safer online environment for all.”