Giant Oak and Liberty Shared Develop First-Ever Criminal-Focused International View into Human and Wildlife Trafficking Crimes
by Business Wire, on Feb 6, 2019 5:09:02 PM
ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 5, 2019--Giant Oak, a leader in applying data and behavioral science to help organizations identify potential threats, today announced it has developed the first crime- and criminal-centered global view of human and wildlife trafficking in partnership with Liberty Shared, a global counter-trafficking NGO. The partnership provides better analysis of criminal profiles and trafficking activity to enable improved investigation, intervention, and interdiction by NGO partners and law enforcement.
Human trafficking is a $150 billion-per-year industry that traps 24.9 million victims into modern-day slavery, through industries like sex trafficking and forced labor. Illegal wildlife trafficking is estimated at $10 billion annually. The first global map of human and wildlife trafficking crimes ever produced and made publicly available, the data visualization dashboard created by Giant Oak and Liberty Shared uses publicly available information to detect patterns, identify links, and assist in the investigation of those directly or indirectly benefiting from human or wildlife trafficking.
“The counter-trafficking community has made significant progress on victim-centered analysis, but what was missing was a clearer understanding of the perpetrators and organizations that commit these crimes,” said Dr. Gary Shiffman, CEO, and founder of Giant Oak. “By leveraging behavioral science, Liberty Shared is searching and screening data to analyze perpetrators’ nationalities and other key attributes and identify blind spots in media reporting. Liberty Shared is spearheading methods on information collection to fight atrocious human rights and wildlife abuses. We are proud to partner with them to make the world a safer and freer place.”
The Information and Data Collaboration Programme (IDC) at Liberty Shared has identified vital data points on criminals from media reporting over several years. The data includes information already available in the public domain and is critical in the fight against a wide assortment of trafficking crimes. Giant Oak collaborated with Liberty Shared to create data visualizations that identify trends for data providers, NGO partners, and law enforcement agencies.
“Collecting these articles and identifying key data points such as the name, gender, nature of the crime, dates of arrest, charges and industry, allows members of the anti-trafficking community to build a better picture of activities and the nature of those perpetrating the crimes. This data is also useful to law enforcement, financial institutions, and financial intelligence units,” said Leighton Joyce, Director of the Information and Data Collaboration Programme at Liberty Shared. “We are grateful to Giant Oak for their work in creating this platform with us.”
In collaboration, Giant Oak and Liberty Shared use social science to help the appropriate groups counter criminal organizations and support the protection of vulnerable populations from trafficking activities. Liberty Shared works with nearly 40 NGOs across Africa, Asia, and South America, as well as corporations and financial institutions with the aim to prevent human trafficking. Giant Oak will continue to build future versions of the dashboard and provide support to Liberty Shared and its partners in this effort.
About Giant Oak
Giant Oak combines data and behavioral science to help business and government identify potential threats during the online search and screening process. Led by a team of social scientists, machine learning experts, and security professionals, the company provides a system known as GOST ® which expertly searches the deep web to reveal and rank otherwise-hidden actions, actors, and communities. GOST’s human-centered design principles apply machine learning to publicly available information enabling organizations to see a clearer picture of the people with whom they transact. The government, financial and regulatory organizations, and national security agencies use GOST to comply with Customer Due Diligence (CDD) processes, reduce false negatives, increase data confidence, and enable smarter and easier decision-making. For more information, visit www.giantoak.com.
About Liberty Shared
Liberty Shared is made up of a group of dedicated professionals who feel strongly that a more effective, coordinated response to slavery is essential and that leveraging technology available to the corporate sector and providing it to the NGO sector will facilitate this response. Liberty Shared’s goal is to provide new solutions to change the way slavery and trafficking is addressed. Liberty Shared is a Hong Kong registered charitable organization and can be reached at libertyshared.org.
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CONTACT: Lauren Horn
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KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA VIRGINIA
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: TECHNOLOGY DATA MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE SECURITY PHILANTHROPY ENVIRONMENT OTHER SCIENCE OTHER PHILANTHROPY SCIENCE
SOURCE: Giant Oak and Liberty Shared
Copyright Business Wire 2019.
PUB: 02/05/2019 08:31 AM/DISC: 02/05/2019 08:31 AM
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190205005187/en