Putting Victims First: A Conversation with Child Rescue Coalition

From left to right: Adam Firman, Deputy Director of Tech Sales at MSAB. Catherine Cox, Special Projects Consultant – Child Rescue Coalition. Tom Farrell, Contractor at Child Rescue Coalition.

In the fight against online child exploitation, few organizations have had the impact of Child Rescue Coalition (CRC). We spoke with the team at CRC about their mission, the challenges law enforcement faces, their evolving collaboration with MSAB, and what the future holds.

About the Mission

Child Rescue Coalition is a nonprofit that rescues children from sexual abuse and exploitation by building technology for law enforcement, free of charge, to identify, arrest, and prosecute child predators. Child Rescue Coalition partners with law enforcement in all 50 U.S. states and over 106 countries. Child Rescue Coalition has helped arrest over 16,000 and rescue over 3,800 children worldwide.

The roots of Child Rescue Coalition begin with Hank Asher, a data mining pioneer whose cutting-edge tools (like TLOxp and Accurint) revolutionized real time cross referencing of criminal data. He generously supported law enforcement and child protection efforts. In late 2013, prompted by Hank’s sudden passing, his daughters Carly and Desiree Asher chose to transform that child protection technology into a dedicated nonprofit. On December 13, 2013, Child Rescue Coalition officially launched, offering free, specialized technology to aid law enforcement worldwide.

What drives your team on a day-to-day basis in this incredibly sensitive and important work?

Purpose-fueled innovation: Child Rescue Coalition’s proprietary technology tracks tens of millions of suspects daily—to help investigators proactively identify and arrest offenders before harm occurs. Dedicated partnerships: Child Rescue Coalition trains thousands of law enforcement professionals each year because of the invaluable corporate partnerships. Life‑saving impact: Each predator stop means tens to hundreds of children spared from harm. Moral duty: Finding abusers online because “victims don’t always come forward.”

The Challenge

What are some of the biggest challenges law enforcement faces when it comes to identifying and rescuing children from exploitation?

The rise in the scale of child sexual abuse offending in recent years has caused so many challenges for law enforcement. More people are using the internet to trade child sexual abuse material, which means that more people are consuming it, and that increases the business model, where children are abused to meet that demand. Law enforcement have to deal with enormous rises in volume, and in many of those cases, children are being abused in real life by those offenders. Law enforcement seeks to identify those children, to rescue and protect them, and support survivors whose images continue to circulate online for many years after the abuse has taken place.

How has technology changed the nature of these investigations in recent years?

Technology can be used for good or for bad. We’ve seen the challenges of end-to-end encryption, and the challenges posed by the use of AI to generate CSAM. We have seen the use of technology to hide offending and make it harder for law enforcement to identify where that abuse is taking place. It’s easy to get downhearted about the impact of technology – but this collaboration with MSAB is a great example of using technology to help in the fight!

Collaboration with MSAB

How did the partnership with MSAB come about?

The partnership between Child Rescue Coalition and MSAB began in 2014, when UK law enforcement started using Child Rescue Coalition technology to arrest over one thousand offenders annually.

Tom Farrell, Child Rescue Coalition’s Director of Core Technology, was a law enforcement user of the technology while MSAB’s Tech Evangelist, Adam Firman, was a digital forensics expert in the same agency. They both worked on hundreds of investigations resulting from Child Rescue Coalition data.

Fast forward a decade and that relationship has remained strong. Operation Artemis provided the perfect opportunity for both organizations to partner together.

What impact has MSAB’s technology had on your mission?

Child Rescue Coalition is seeking to protect and support known survivors of child sexual abuse material, with Operation Artemis. This operation takes a victim centered approach to tackling the availability of child sexual abuse material. Using image hashes specifically linked to identified individuals as part of the Artemis cohort, we provide bespoke referrals to law enforcement agencies around the world. For the first time this places the survivor at the heart of the response and enables a named victim to be associated with investigations that may have otherwise been seen as ‘victimless’. Our collaboration is enabling investigators to combine our Artemis data with MSAB’s forensic tools – which identify where these images are being circulated, earlier. It means we can put the survivors at the heart of more investigations and identify more offenders the world over. It sends a clear message to survivors that their experience matters – and we are joining forces to fight for them.

Ethics & Responsibility

Working in this field involves deep ethical considerations. How do you approach technology and privacy responsibly while still protecting children?

Our technology specifically works by monitoring the areas of the internet where predators lurk. Child Rescue Coalition gathers and analyzes the data from predators who are downloading and trading child sexual abuse material and presents it to law enforcement, free of charge. The information we obtain exists in the public ether of the internet and where child predators have made their data available. Privacy is always of the utmost concern, but when predators make their information available, we collect and provide it to law enforcement to protect children.

Looking Ahead

What developments or initiatives are you most excited about in the coming year?

Child Rescue Coalition has many different workstreams and having MSAB’s digital forensic capabilities supporting us in those workstreams will open the door to identifying children and apprehending offenders around the world.

How can others whether in tech, law enforcement, or the public support the work Child Rescue Coalition is doing?

Get involved! Child sexual abuse affects everyone in society. So many people are impacted, whether sexual abuse happens within their family, school, or community. Everybody, whether working in tech, in law enforcement, or anywhere else, can send the message that survivors’ experiences matter, and we are on their side—whether that is preventing child abuse, rescuing children, dealing with offenders, or educating and empowering people to understand the threat and the risk to themselves and their loved ones. Learn more about our organization, donate, and get in touch! We would love to tell you more about what we do and how we can work with you.

Personal Perspective from Greg Schiller, CEO, CRC

On a personal level, what has leading CRC taught you about resilience, leadership, or hope?

Leading Child Rescue Coalition has shown me that true resilience comes from facing unimaginable challenges with unwavering resolve. The fight against child exploitation is not one we are going to win without help. It has taught me that leadership means standing strong not only for a cause, but for the vulnerable lives that depend on our team. Through every obstacle, I’ve seen how hope isn’t just a feeling – it’s a force that fuels change and saves lives.

— Greg Schiller, CEO, Child Rescue Coalition