It is estimated that there are 21 million people enslaved worldwide.[1] Human trafficking is the third largest global illicit trade and is growing at a higher rate than weapons and narcotics. Men, women, and children are victims of trafficking internationally as well as within the United States.
Polaris Project, Liberty Asia, and La Strada International are recipients of a $3 million dollar Global Impact Award given by Google to support nonprofit organizations that use technology to initiate disruptive solutions in their sector. Together, these organizations are launching the Global Human Trafficking Hotline Network, an initiative seeded by Google Ideas to share data and improve coordination between local hotline efforts. Palantir is pleased to announce our collaboration with Polaris Project, improving the network’s ability to manage and analyze the large amounts of disparate data culled from its human trafficking hotline.
Polaris’ hotline has received 72,000 trafficking-related calls, reported more than 3,000 trafficking cases to law enforcement officials and assisted nearly 8,300 victims of modern-day slavery. The donation of our analytical software platform–with built-in privacy and civil liberties safeguards–as well as our ongoing training and support augments Polaris’ existing efforts to disrupt illicit trafficking networks and provide much-needed assistance to victims.
The video below, produced by Google Ideas, describes the Global Human Trafficking Hotline Network in greater detail.
Polaris Project is just one of the many ways in which Palantir’s Philanthropy Engineering efforts have assisted the fight against illicit networks, human trafficking, and child exploitation.
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[1] International Labor Organization 2012 Global Estimate of Forced Labor.