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AI-Assisted Child Exploitation Investigation Search Tool

Enforcement · Safety & Security

What it collects that can identify you

Sensitive personal information
Identifiable data
  • Images and text content depicting or describing potentially exploited children, sourced from publicly available internet platforms where they are advertised. This data is identifiable as it contains direct visual or descriptive information about specific individuals.

Also collects about a place, which is anonymized data.

Run by
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with
Accountable organization
Your copy
You cannot see the data it holds about you. What you can do

What it is for

EnforcementSafety & Security

Spotlight is used by Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigators to help locate and identify children who may be victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation by searching publicly available online content. It uses image recognition and advanced text search to surface relevant material from open internet sources. Facial recognition is included in the platform but has been disabled for RCMP users by the vendor. This system involves personal information and its use of AI has been disclosed.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Sensitive personal information
Identifiable data
  • Images and text content depicting or describing potentially exploited children, sourced from publicly available internet platforms where they are advertised. This data is identifiable as it contains direct visual or descriptive information about specific individuals.
About a place
Anonymized data
  • Open-source internet location information associated with advertisements or postings that may indicate where exploited children are located or have been advertised.

Processing

Computer Vision
  • Image and object recognition is used to analyze photographs and images found on public internet sources, identifying visual content relevant to child exploitation investigations. Facial recognition is present in the platform but currently disabled for RCMP users by the vendor Thorn.
Search & Retrieval
  • Advanced open text search functionality allows investigators to query and retrieve relevant open-source internet content related to child trafficking and exploitation investigations.

What it does

Sensing (Perceptive AI)
Human decides
  • Spotlight uses image and object recognition to interpret visual content from open-source internet sources, identifying images that may depict exploited children. An RCMP investigator reviews and acts on the results.
Understanding (Semantic AI)
Human decides
  • Spotlight performs advanced open text searches across open-source internet content to surface relevant information about potential child trafficking and exploitation cases, with RCMP investigators making operational decisions based on the results.

Outputs

A recommendation or prediction
Identifiable data
  • The system surfaces and ranks relevant images, text, and online advertisements to investigators, who then make investigative decisions. Outputs may identify or relate to specific individuals (children and potentially perpetrators).

Run by

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
  • The RCMP deploys Spotlight to support investigators working on child trafficking and exploitation cases, searching open-source internet content to locate and identify exploited children.

Government of Canada AI Registry — Spotlight

Built by

Thorn
  • Thorn is the vendor that built and supplies the Spotlight platform, including the image recognition and text search capabilities. Thorn has disabled the facial recognition functionality for RCMP users.

Government of Canada AI Registry — Spotlight

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Not available to me
  • Access to Spotlight and its outputs is restricted to authorized GC employees (RCMP investigators). Members of the public, including individuals whose data may be processed, cannot access the system or its outputs.
Available to the accountable organization
  • Outputs and findings generated through Spotlight are available to RCMP investigators and the broader Royal Canadian Mounted Police organization in the context of active child exploitation investigations.

Stored

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data
Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data
Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data
The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides
This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes
This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous
This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the Helpful Places, not the vendor.

Your rights

  • Right to Be Informed of AI UseThe use of AI in this system has been publicly disclosed in the Government of Canada's AI Registry. Individuals subject to investigations involving this tool may have rights to know about AI use through applicable criminal procedure and privacy law.
  • Right to a Human ReviewAll outputs from Spotlight are reviewed by trained RCMP investigators before any enforcement action is taken. The system produces investigative leads, not final determinations; human judgment is required at every decision point.

Risks and safeguards

  • Civil liberties harmThe system's facial recognition capability — which carries significant civil liberties risks including mass surveillance and misidentification — has been disabled by vendor Thorn for all RCMP users and is not currently in use. Access is restricted to GC employees (RCMP investigators) for use in child exploitation investigations only. Residual risks include potential misidentification of individuals through image recognition, and the use of personal data sourced from the open internet in a law enforcement context.Safeguard: Human investigators review all system outputs before any enforcement action; access is limited to authorized RCMP personnel; the AI use has been disclosed publicly.
  • Reputational harmImage and object recognition systems can misidentify individuals, creating risk of wrongful association with child exploitation for innocent people whose images may appear in open-source data.Safeguard: RCMP investigators are the primary decision-makers and review all system outputs; the system provides leads rather than binding determinations; trained law enforcement personnel apply investigative judgment before taking any action.