Google Takes on Old Challenge With New Technology

Google Ideas, Google’s global issues think tank, announced this week a $3 million investment that they’re making into creating a global human trafficking hotline network, helping to combat a problem that has been worsening for literally hundreds of years

After holding various events, and discussions on illicit networks, slavery, and human trafficking, Google ideas has started developing a system for tracking trafficking trends on a Global scale, attempting to make it harder and less profitable for human traffickers to work.

According to a video released, the first idea for this global trend database, and global network of hotlines started at a smaller scale. Truck drivers on a certain route reported to the US hotline an unusual amount of pimps offering their women on the route, targeting the lonely truck drivers. They took that information, and used it to save many woman in the area, and they believe that they can do the same thing on a global scale.

Kudos to Google for taking action on a problem that doesn’t receive the attention it deserves.

To learn more about these hotlines, check out this video from Polaris Project.