Hi! Please please read and SHARE this very-interesting and well-researched 4-part series of articles that looks at an open-sourced anti-human trafficking software program called “Chain Breaker.” (Parts 2, 3, and 4 of the series here). Chain Breaker’s website describes this program as being a “cloud-based tool that automatically searches, extracts, stores and analyzes information from websites that offer sexual services to identify potential victims of sexual exploitation, suspected criminal human trafficking networks, and sex industries suspected of concealing exploitative activities.”

Chain Breaker was created by a team of academics and anti-human trafficking experts from the following institutions: IBM Traffik Analysis Hub, Stop the Traffik, Ohio University, Universidad Nacional de Colombia and Fundación Pasos Libres. The lead researcher on the project (who now follows me on this blog! thanks!) is Juan E. Cepeda, who describes himself as being a computer science student at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota, Columbia. Thank you to Juan and his team for creating this software program, which definitely appears to be intended to try to further “open-source” and broaden the scope of knowledge available to activists who seek to fight against all forms of human trafficking and sex trafficking. Solidarity everyone!! Stay safe in your research and investigations!!