TraffikCam Fights Human Trafficking With an App You Can Download
Internet / Android / iOS: Human trafficking is a huge global problem that one app won’t solve, but which this app can help a little with. TraffickCam asks you to take pictures of your hotel room by creating a database that can be matched with the numbers in photographs of victims of trafficking.
The app description describes this more accurately than I could:
Traffickers regularly post photos of their victims in hotel rooms for online advertising. These photographs are evidence that can be used to find and prosecute those responsible for these crimes. However, in order to use these photographs, investigators must be able to determine where they were taken.
TraffickCam’s goal is to create a database of hotel room images that an investigator can efficiently search to find other images taken in the same location as an image that is part of an investigation.
In short, by taking a few pictures of your hotel room wherever you stay while traveling, and then identifying that hotel room, you will give investigators another clue as to where they think the photographs of the victims of human trafficking may have been. and if they know when, it may be a matter of narrowing the circle of those who stopped where and at what time. The app is a project of the Exchange Initiative , an organization committed to ending speculation with people around the world and offering real resources to help.
TraffickCam is available for free (of course) for iPhone and Android, and there is a web app if you don’t want to install anything. Several reviewers on iTunes and Google Play point out (rightly) that the app and its database are only as good as the law enforcement agencies that use it, and the fact that you need to be in the hotel room in question when you take and uploading photos makes them worry that this is some kind of installation. The developers are trying to remove some of this from their FAQ , although they do not indicate which law enforcement agencies they allow access to their database. For more information follow the links below.
TraffickCam TraffickCam (free) | TraffickCam on the iTunes App Store (Free) | Google games