Last week, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) held its first-ever Gala for Child Protection, raising over $1.3 million dollars to combat crimes against children worldwide. At the event, Microsoft accepted the Global Impact for Child Protection award for our contributions to the fight against child exploitation. Also honored at the event were world-renowned artist Jeff Koons and his wife Justine, longtime supporters of ICMEC, and Ashton Kutcher gave a moving tribute to retiring ICMEC Founding President and CEO Ernie Allen, whose tireless advocacy has helped the lives of millions of children around the world.
Microsoft was deeply honored to be recognized among these leaders. For more than a decade, we have invested in technology and global partnerships that aim to help in this fight – from the development and distribution of PhotoDNA and contributing to Project Vic, to providing trainings for law enforcement. We have been humbled by the importance of this mission and the devotion of our global partners whose passion makes the world a safer place for children. We see this moment as an acknowledgement of what can be achieved when people and organizations come together to try to make a difference.
To be honest, when Microsoft worked with Dartmouth College to develop PhotoDNA – an image-matching technology we make available to organizations for free to help stop the spread of child sexual abuse images online – I don’t know that we truly appreciated the breadth of impact it might ultimately have. Today, PhotoDNA is a leading best practice for combating child sexual abuse material online and is currently being used by 70 companies, including Facebook and Twitter, non-governmental organizations and law enforcement. In April, Interpol integrated PhotoDNA technology into its International Child Sexual Exploitation (ICSE) database to help officers identify and rescue victims as quickly as possible.
And yet, while we are pleased that PhotoDNA has proven to be a helpful tool in this effort, it is but one of many, and still we must also recognize that we have barely scratched the surface as an industry – and as a society – in the fight against child abuse.
We must do more. And we must do it together. Because every child deserves to have a childhood.
To learn more about the International Centre for Missing and Exploited children, visit: http://www.icmec.org. To learn more about PhotoDNA, visit the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit Newsroom.