Project 1591® Celebrates 2 Years and Over 500 Victims Identified
The Project 1591 process and platform is now two years old. Since July 2022, the dedicated volunteers of Project 1591 have tirelessly contributed their time and expertise to identify potential trafficking victims online across the country.
The global volunteer force has used their Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) skills to collectively identify over 500 victims of trafficking here in the United States! An astounding 90% increase compared to the two years prior. The victims were identified across 31 states and information was sent to law enforcement for action.
How It Works
If you are unfamiliar with how the Project 1591 process and platform works, let us break it down for you. In the United States on average there are 150,000 new escort ads posted online every single day. Hidden among these are ads for minors. Most law enforcement agencies across the country do not have the time, resources and sometimes the skillset necessary to comb through these ads to identify potential victims of trafficking.
This is where Guardian Group and the Project 1591 volunteers come in. We search the ads looking for indicators of trafficking. Then utilizing OSINT and Publicly Available Information (PAI) the volunteer works to put a true identity to the person in the escort ad. When someone is advertised online it is never in their true name and often not their true age either. For example, Lucy age 18 in Oklahoma City is really Sabrina age 16 from Salt Lake City.
As the volunteer works, they collect various types of PAI – social media accounts, cash apps, etc. all of which help prove who the person is and how old they are. If the person in the escort ad is a legal adult PAI can also be used to find reasonable suspicion that trafficking is occurring by uncovering indicators of either force, fraud or coercion; the elements required for something to be trafficking. Once enough information is collected to give law enforcement reasonable suspicion or probable cause the volunteer submits the report to the Guardian Group’s internal Analysis Team.
Our analyst verifies the information submitted by the volunteer and awards the volunteer points according to what they submitted. The analyst then adds any additional information they might find and packages it up into a Publicly Available Information Report (PAIR). The PAIR is then sent to active US law enforcement partners via a statewide distribution list.
One of two things happens once a PAIR is sent. An officer receives the PAIR and takes action, using it as a start point for engaging the victim in an effort to offer a path to freedom while simultaneously attempting to identify any trafficker involved in the exploitation. Or if the officer receives the PAIR and it is not for their jurisdiction, they can download the report and send it to their counterpart in the appropriate jurisdiction. We currently do not have law enforcement partners in every city across the country which is why sending to a statewide distribution is important. This not only ensures action is taken but also expands our network of law enforcement officers.
“Being able to volunteer time and put it towards something as important as stopping sex trafficking… I would not have imagined that I’d be able to do something like this and having the platform to do it has been really great.” – Project 1591 volunteer
Growth and Improvement
Last year our internal team identified two areas, the platform and process, needed improvement. First, a messaging function needed to be added to allow for more fluid communication between the volunteer and the internal Analysis Team. The second was to simplify the onboarding process for law enforcement officers.
We are proud to report both improvements were completed and have helped amplify the ability of Project 1591. The messaging function not only allows for better communication it also allows us to highlight areas where upcoming support for law enforcement is needed. Focusing volunteers on a single area at the same time for greater impact.
We have successfully onboarded law enforcement, both state and federal, in 29 states.
“We simply don’t always have the officers available to do this kind of work, it is specialized, it is technical and we just don’t have the people on staff that have the experience dealing with it and so for us to be able to take the information from highly skilled analysts at Guardian Group who knows how to do their research and homework and gather Open Source Intelligence for law enforcement is a great way for us to leverage the information and have impact in our local community.” – Iowa Police Department
Volunteer Today
If you are passionate about seeing domestic sex trafficking stopped, willing to dedicate your free time to protecting children and have some level of OSINT skills that you are eager to put towards a good cause join Project 1591 today!
Together we are harnessing the power of many to find the vulnerable.