Nonprofit's Web Tool Helps Cops Catch Thousands of Child Porn Suspects

In a recent report, NBC News detailed how the Child Protection System helps police to track down suspects in child pornography cases. The Internet tool is provided to law enforcement agencies in all 50 states at no cost thanks to a non-profit organization named the Child Rescue Coalition.

NBC News reports in an article titled “Inside The Surveillance Software Tracking Child Porn Offenders Across the Globe” that a forensic tool called Child Protection System has helped law enforcement to track down and arrest suspects in child pornography cases by scanning file-sharing networks and chatrooms to find individuals that are downloading photos and videos of child abuse and pornography.

The software was developed by the Child Rescue Coalition, a Florida-based nonprofit group that helps to establish the probable cause needed by law enforcement to get a search warrant. NBC News discusses how the software is used, writing:

The tool, which was shown to NBC News earlier this year, is designed to help police triage child pornography cases so they can focus on the most persistent offenders at a time when they are inundated with reports. It offers a way to quickly crack down on an illegal industry that has proved resilient against years of efforts to stop the flow of illegal images and videos. The problem has intensified since the coronavirus lockdown, law enforcement officials say, as people spend more time online viewing and distributing illegal material.

The Child Protection System, which lets officers search by country, state, city or county, displays a ranked list of the internet addresses downloading the most problematic files. The tool looks for images that have been reported to or seized by police and categorized as depicting children under age 12.

The Child Protection System “has had a bigger effect for us than any tool anyone has ever created. It’s been huge,” said Dennis Nicewander, assistant state attorney in Broward County, Florida, who has used the software to prosecute about 200 cases over the last decade. “They have made it so automated and simple that the guys are just sitting there waiting to be arrested.”

The Child Rescue Coalition provides the software for free to law enforcement agencies and it is used by approximately 8,500 investigators across all 50 U.S. states. 95 other countries also use the software including Canada, the United Kingdon, and Brazil. The nonprofit has trained approximately 12,000 law enforcement investigators globally since 2010.

But now, the Child Rescue Coalition is seeking partnerships with online platforms such as Facebook, school districts, and other sites to determine if people who are downloading illegal images are also trying to make contact with or work with minors. “Many of these platforms have a big problem of users engaging in suspicious activity that doesn’t rise to criminal behavior,” said Carly Yoost, CEO of the Child Rescue Coalition. “If they matched their user data with ours, it could alert their security teams to take a closer look at some of their users.”