Leading Child Protection Corporation Microsoft Donates Software to Fight Child Porn

Microsoft has continued to cement their reputation as one of the leading corporations committed to fighting human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children by donating software that will help remove child pornography from the Internet. The company has had a long-term partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), and together they have worked to remove illegal child pornography from the Internet and identify both perpetrators and victims. Thank you, Microsoft, for living your slogan: Your potential, our passion. We have the passion to end child pornography and you certainly have the potential.

Microsoft is donating their PhotoDNA software to NCMEC to help them identify and remove images of child pornography. The software sounds amazing: it reads the data that makes up a photo very much like DNA. It can identify a photo's unique characteristics and remain accurate even if the photo's size changes dramatically. That's something NCMEC's previous software couldn't do, which might have allowed child pornography to go undetected simply because the owner changed the image size. PhotoDNA is a truly unique and significant technology that will change the way law enforcement and social service organizations are able to help victimized children.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, was proud that his company could provide NCMEC with the tools they need to curb child pornography: "We can't allow people to keep trading these horrifying images online when we have the technology to do something about it. These children have been through enough."

I'm thrilled that Microsoft realizes that child pornography is not just an image, it's evidence of sexual abuse. When children are sold and abused to make pornography, it can be evidence of human trafficking. The creation and distribution of pornography is one way traffickers keep children from leaving. I've worked with cases where pimps have threatened to send pornographic images to the child's family or friends if they try to leave. Traffickers also use child pornography to groom other children into the sex trade. In most cases, however, child pornography is produced by someone the victims knows, either for profit or their own personal use. The images might be the only evidence, other than the testimony of a traumatized child, that a crime has taken place. Child pornography has led law enforcement to locate both abused children and child trafficking victims in the past.

Even once a child victim has been found and removed from the abusive situation, the continued presence of those images on the Internet revictimizes the child again and again. Some child pornography victims have stated that they feel they can't fully heal from their experiences, fearing that the images of their abuse might turn up later in their life. Think about it -- would you want a future employer or significant other to find sexual images of you produced against your will as a child? It's a deeply sensitive and significant privacy issue. Removing these images not only helps find child victims and arrest perpetrators, but is also an important step to help victims recover and to prevent the images from being used to groom new victims.

NCMEC has already helped identify almost 3000 victims of child pornography, and that was with older, less advanced software. Just think of how many more victims they might be able to find thanks to Microsoft's technology donation.  Keep up the fantastic and inspiring work, Microsoft, and we may be well on our way to eradicating child pornography together.

Photo credit: liewcf