Snapping a picture of your hotel room could help stop human trafficking

[Liberal_in_LA]

Snapping a picture inside your hotel room could help protect children across the globe.

The TraffickCam app enables travelers to submit pictures of hotel rooms around the world. The images are matched against a national database used by police.

“You just enter your hotel name and your room number. You take four pictures, and you submit them to the website,” Washington University Researcher and TraffickCam developer Abby Stylianou said. “And then those become part of the pipeline that law enforcement can use to track down where the victims are being trafficked.”

Stylianou was among the speakers at a Human Trafficking Town Hall at Maritz Tuesday.

“Right now there are pictures posted every day. Hundreds of pictures, in every city around the United States, posted online, that show victims of trafficking, in hotel rooms posed on beds,” she said.

http://fox2now.com/2016/06/22/snapping-a-picture-of-your-hotel-room-could-help-stop-human-trafficking/

[MADem]

1. This organization should start extracting data/photos from

review websites like Trip Advisor and even proprietary hotel chain websites. A lot of people put hotel room pics up on those type of websites.

[LittleGirl]

2. I use trip advisor extensively.

great idea.

[AllyCat]

3. Don't like the officer they interview saying "our girls that we work with "

Sounds really bad. Downloaded the app.

[Mister Ed]

4. And it sounds as though he means "girls" quite literally.

He said detectives are noticing an increase in younger victims.

“The average age, when we talk to our girls that we deal with, most of them have started at 13, 14 years old. And most of them have been sexually abused as children,” he said.

[Darb]

9. Make sure to point out

irrelevant shit like that every chance you get. That person is doing good work, yet the perfect police can always find fault in the good, even the great.

[AllyCat]

12. Not "irrelevant shit". Language and words have power

Microaggressions will not stand. Of course they are doing good work. But we must learn how we speak and act about things help perpetuate some of the same things we are fighting.

[yardwork]

19. I don't understand the problem. The victims are girls.

I'm the first to speak up when people refer to women as girls, but in this case the victims are literally girls.

[AllyCat]

21. "our girls". The rescuers do not own the girls.

Putting the possessive "our" in front of girls is not okay.

[Orrex]

23. Interesting. Additionally...

"It was a photo that they had from the internet," Nix Principal Molly Hackett said. "One of the girls in our office knew exactly what it was."

(emphasis mine)

Microaggressions will not stand.

[kcr]

15. I think in this case it's legit because he literally means girls.

I understand because that's something that bugs me too.

[Aerows]

5. I know this meant well

but we give up entirely too much information as it is.

[FSogol]

6. Really? Don't help the authorities stop underage sexual trafficing because of your privacy

of someone else's hotel?

No words. x ?

You really should self-delete.

[Quantess]

7. True, but it is a bit more meaningful than, say,

Checking in at the gym on facebook, or posting instagram photos of your food, or a duck-lips selfie.

[Darb]

10. What does this action reveal?

That you are staying in that room? Or stayed in that room? That's not a big worry I do not think.

[yardwork]

20. They aren't asking you to take photos of your personal things, just the room.

[tallahasseedem]

8. This is a great idea!

It only takes a few items for them to directly match and develop at pattern. Whatever helps!

[Brickbat]

11. Why don't hotels do this themselves? They probably worry about their good names, but to pretend

this doesn't happen is asinine. They're the ones on the front lines. Airlines have started educating flight attendants on warning signs that someone may be a trafficking victim; hotels could jump on this as well.

[AllyCat]

13. Great idea!

Another idea I heard was that people using Trip Advisor should push for such a movement/app/action

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. Probably not good advertisement to identity ones hotel with illicit activity

[Brickbat]

18. Which is...what I said, but people can market anything.

[IronLionZion]

14. This is very important

It's incredible how much image data can be aggregated from lots of ordinary people who really can make a difference.

This would be especially important in finding hotel rooms that are unique, independent, or have something in their look that differentiates them in order to find out where it is. Some hotel chains have partnered with law enforcement on finding out how to spot human trafficking and report it. I would hope hotel owners and workers would also submit images.

[Justice]

16. I posted this on my FB and my friend responded with this -

"So, I understand, at least from NCMEC's persepective, this doesn't help. Most trafficking photos aren't taken in hotel rooms, especially the types of hotel rooms business travelers are likely to encounter. Although NCMEC does use PhotoDNA to digitally compare photos to look for backgrounds that will help track down traffickers, they have easy access to Trip Advisor which has photos of pretty much every hotel room in the country. A friend expressed concern that this app doesn't really have the potential to help as much as it harvests your personal information. Thoughts?"


I could not find a comment from NCMEC about this? Any help from DUers to respond to my friend?

[Quantess]

22. K & R

[JustAnotherGen]

24. Thank you!

I will do this.