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| How public records can catch human traffickers |
| How organizations can use public records |
| The Human Trafficking Crimes Resource Center |
Human Trafficking Statistics
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January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month. That makes it a particularly fitting time for organizations of all kinds to look at how their operations may inadvertently be aiding human traffickers locally and worldwide.
The Council on Foreign Relations describes human trafficking as “the trapping and exploitation of a person using deception, violence, or coercion. It generally takes three main forms: forced labor, forced marriage, and forced organ removal.” The problem is depressingly widespread.
How can organizations help end human trafficking? For businesses, those efforts can include being aware that by working with certain partners or vendors, they may be abetting traffickers, which could put these organizations’ reputations and even operations at risk. Many industries are vulnerable to this risk, often without knowing it. Indeed, reducing human trafficking should be considered a crucial element in an organization’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts.
Mitigating the risk of inadvertent involvement with human trafficking is by no means easy. Traffickers have numerous strategies for hiding their activities online and through apparently “legitimate” businesses. However, organizations can work together, thus improving the likelihood of succeeding in the fight.
They also can wield a powerful weapon: digital technology that maximizes the information inside public records to catch human traffickers wherever they may be lurking.
How public records can catch human traffickers
Here’s an instance of how organizations have been collaborating to identify and prosecute cases of human trafficking. In 2019, the Conference of Western Attorneys Generals conducted a webinar along with Thomson Reuters that covered ways that law enforcement can use data to disrupt human trafficking “supply chains.” A representative from Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Polaris, a nongovernmental organization focused on stopping human trafficking, also participated in the webinar.
Webinar participants discussed how technology can reveal red flags and hidden connections in public records—warning signs that could point to potential trafficking activity. In the webinar, Polaris cited a report that it put together that identified red flags it uncovered when studying data related to one trafficking business model—namely, through illicit massage businesses.
The risk factors Thomson Reuters Speciali Services (TRSS) uncovered included:
- Date of birth records
- Address records
- Prostitution arrest records
- Discrepancies between a victim’s DOB and SSN information
Thomson Reuters analysts used these red flags along with its own proprietary data to conduct large-scale research and analysis of human trafficking supply chains. One of the goals of this work was to identify human trafficking risk indicators and patterns hidden in the data. This is just one type of information an analysis of public records can use to reduce the risk of trafficking.
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How organizations can use public records
Clearly, public records are a blessing in the fight against human trafficking. But there is one drawback: the overwhelming amount of public information available. Sorting through this massive quantity of data to find truly useful information about trafficking activities is more than human beings can accomplish efficiently and effectively.
This is where technology is lending a hand. In the past few years, Polaris has been using CLEAR, Thomson Reuters’ digital platform that accesses and analyzes a vast collection of public records to help investigators uncover patterns of fraud and other criminal activity. Working with CLEAR has helped Polaris pore through and analyze massive volumes of data, highlighting data points that might reveal hidden patterns that suggest possible human trafficking activity. This allows Polaris and its various partners, which include law enforcement agencies, municipal officials, and code enforcement professionals, to move on trafficking cases more quickly and strategically.
- Power up traditional methods: Across the country, law enforcement officers, municipal officials, and code enforcement professionals have tried, to varying degrees of success, to disrupt human trafficking networks. Polaris views these people as allies and takes the information it learns from CLEAR to help them be more effective. CLEAR helps Polaris identify areas of concern so that on-the-ground personnel can move more quickly and strategically. Because CLEAR and Polaris make the means easier and the end clearer, authorities are able to have a greater impact.
- Uncover hidden connections: Many human traffickers hide behind the façade of a legitimate business. The more “successful” trafficking organizations are quite skilled at masquerading as a series of shell organizations. CLEAR helps Polaris identify serial filers of shell businesses and follow their thread through mazes of legitimate (but irrelevant) businesses.
- Synthesize “treasure troves” of data: Polaris can access more publicly available information than it knows what do to with. In fact, Polaris CEO Bradley Myles called them “treasure troves” of data — and noted that humans alone couldn’t effectively synthesize such voluminous information. CLEAR helps Polaris quickly gain an accurate sense of what the data is saying. For example, a serial filer of licenses for massage parlors may not be offering legitimate massage services, and so may be a candidate for further investigation. Many human traffickers are repeat offenders, and CLEAR helps Polaris follow what you might call a paper trail to figure out whose dealings might need a second look.
Data-driven analysis allows law enforcement and regulatory agencies to quickly assess the risk of a person being a victim of massage-based sex trafficking. It also can help law enforcement identify persons of interest in illicit massage businesses. When combined with other investigations—for example, looking at massage business license applications from the state to determine which schools were certifying the victims–this data-driven approach can assist government agencies in identifying “visa mills” and other techniques traffickers use to hide their activities.
CLEAR can also help find connections between suspected human traffickers and ancillary crimes such as identity theft or other types of fraud. By giving law enforcement another way to arrest and try a trafficker, focusing on ancillary offenses can reduce the impact on victims by negating the need to have them testify in court—and thus relive their trauma.
The Human Trafficking Crimes Resource Center
This isn’t the only way that Thomson Reuters has been working to end human trafficking. In addition, the company has been partnering with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to investigate the demand for Ukrainian women and girls for sexual exploitation. The OSCE is one of the world’s largest intergovernmental organizations combatting human trafficking. Thomson Reuters has helped by providing analysis of real-time, in-depth online activity patterns to investigate the demand for Ukrainian women for sexual exploitation. This analysis has identified clear signals where human traffickers are forcing Ukrainians escaping war-torn regions into sexual slavery.
In 2022, the OSCE and Thomson Reuters launched Be Safe, a global human trafficking awareness campaign to warn Ukrainian people on the move of the risks they face from traffickers and sharing resources to help them stay safe. Several governments pledged their support for the campaign, as have government agencies, human trafficking experts, and nongovernmental organizations from across the region.
And in 2023, Thomson Reuters activated a Human Trafficking Resource Center that provides online toolkits to help government agencies and other organizations battle human trafficking, particularly sex trafficking of minors. In addition, the program offers media toolkits that agencies can use to raise public awareness about human trafficking and its perpetrators’ luring strategies, such as social media and other online forums.
Thomson Reuters’ work demonstrates that organizations of all kinds can work together to end human trafficking, both within their operations and within their communities. Learn more about how governments and businesses can use public records technology and raise awareness—not just in the month of January, but throughout the year.
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