Collaborating to fight online child exploitation

As a technology innovator, Microsoft takes on a special responsibility to deliver training and tools that can help law enforcement officers protect children. The Child Exploitation Tracking System is a unique software tool that helps protect children from exploitation online. It enables more effective identification and prosecution of offenders by allowing governments to store, search, share, and analyze evidence in child exploitation cases across police agencies.

Microsoft has invested more than $9 million USD to create the system, which was developed by Microsoft Canada in conjunction with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Toronto Police Services. With tools like the Child Exploitation Tracking System, industry and law enforcement agencies are leveraging technology to help mitigate the disturbing prevalence of online child exploitation.

Powerful cross-border collaboration and analytic capabilities

As of June 2007, the Child Exploitation Tracking System has been deployed in seven countries and is being used by over 400 investigators worldwide. With it, law enforcement agencies can break down borders through collaboration and information sharing.

The Child Exploitation Tracking System uses standard Web and security-enhanced technologies, allowing agencies to work together seamlessly on investigations into the exploitation of children, based on existing legal agreements. Based on Extensible Markup Language (XML), the system allows investigators to both provide and receive information from almost any computer system that contains relevant data, regardless of the hardware or software.

The Child Exploitation Tracking System contains powerful features that permit investigators to easily import, organize, analyze, share and search information, from the point of detection through the investigative phase.

Learn more about the program