Turning scattered signals into evidence analysts can act on

The signals that indicate trafficking activity are scattered across advertisements on sites that change constantly. Finding them is only the first problem; the harder one is holding onto them in a state that survives being handed to law enforcement.

Analysts were spending their time on collection and cleanup rather than on analysis — the part of the work only they can do.

The system scrapes the internet for sites carrying advertisements that can be marked as connected to trafficking activity, then cleans, structures and stores what it collects.

Collected data is converted into formats the end clients actually work in, so the handoff to law enforcement is a normal step in the workflow rather than a manual export exercise. Analysts spend their time flagging and documenting networks rather than gathering raw material.

• Automated collection Continuous scraping of sources carrying advertisements linked to trafficking activity.
• Cleaning & structuring Raw captures are normalised into consistent, queryable records.
• Analyst workflow Detection, documentation and flagging of networks in one place.
• Law-enforcement handoff Data converted into the formats end clients need, ready for onward use.

A collection tier gathers source material, a processing tier cleans and normalises it, and a storage and export tier holds the results in formats the client's downstream consumers accept.

Analysts work from a single documented record of a network instead of assembling one from scratch each time.

Because collection and cleaning are automated, the team's effort concentrates on the judgement work that leads to a referral.