This Camera App is Taking On Human Trafficking with Photos of Hotel Rooms
Human trafficking is a horrific problem that affects an estimated 20+ million people globally, but don’t let that statistic overwhelm you. Thanks to the camera app TraffickCam, anybody with a smartphone can help fight this horror in a small way: by taking pictures of their hotel room when they travel.
TraffickCam was created in 2015 by the Exchange Initiative, an organization that “empower[s] people and organizations with resources, knowledge and networks to help fight sex trafficking.” This app is their broadest initiative yet.
“Traffickers regularly post photographs of their victims posed in hotel rooms for online advertisements. These photographs are evidence that can be used to find and prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes. In order to use these photos, however, investigators must be able to determine where the photos were taken,” the organization explains on its website. “The purpose of TraffickCam is to create a database of hotel room images that an investigator can efficiently search, in order to find other images that were taken in the same location as an image that is part of an investigation.”
The app is available for both Android and iOS. To learn more about TraffickCam or download it before your next trip, grab it from Google Play, the iTunes App Store, or use the app on the Web.
(via Lifehacker)
