In this episode of Forensic Fix, host Adam Firman interviews guests from the Child Rescue Coalition (CRC) and people involved with the CRC, a nonprofit organization that rescues children from sexual abuse. The guests include Kelvin Lay, Director of Engagement and Risk at ChildLight; Jay Houston, Director of Training at CRC; Cerys Evans, Intelligence Manager in the CSA Team with the National Crime Agency (NCA); Emily Meacham, Director of Development at CRC; and Tom Farrell, responsible for CRC's innovation technology. They discuss the importance of CRC's technology in identifying and arresting child predators, the need for collaboration and support in the fight against child sexual exploitation, and the impact of CRC's work in protecting children. The episode concludes with a recap of the successful CRC gala, which raised over $566,000 to support their mission.
Celebrating Success: The Annual Gala of Child Rescue Coalition
Recognizing Excellence: Awards for Instructors and Investigators
Child Rescue Coalition (CRC) is a nonprofit organization that rescues children from sexual abuse by providing technology to law enforcement agencies free of charge.
CRC's technology helps identify, arrest, and prosecute child predators, as well as rescue innocent children from sexual abuse and exploitation.
Collaboration and support from individuals, organizations, and law enforcement agencies are crucial in the fight against child sexual exploitation.
CRC's gala is an opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of the organization and raise funds to continue providing their technology for free to law enforcement.
The gala also recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the mission of CRC, such as instructors and investigators.
(1) Emily (Hunt) Meacham | LinkedIn
(1) Tom Farrell QPM | LinkedIn
(1) Child Rescue Coalition, Inc.: Overview | LinkedIn
Adam Firman (00:04.302)
Hello and welcome to episode 15 of Forensic Fix, a podcast brought to you from MSAB where we invite guests from the industry to discuss the latest news in DFIR, current issues, and a general chat about all things digital forensics and investigation. I'm your host, Adam Firman, a tech evangelist here with MSAB. So I'm pleased to announce that we have a different kind of podcast for you today. Episode 15 is a Child Rescue Coalition special.
For those listeners who are unaware of what the CRC does, Child Rescue Coalition is a nonprofit organization that rescues children from sexual abuse by building technology for law enforcement free of charge to track, arrest, and prosecute child predators. They are headquartered in Florida, in the US, and they have developed powerful technology which has been a significant tool for law enforcement agencies across the globe.
Their technologies improve the success rate of investigations and policing operations in the ongoing pursuit to identify, apprehend, and convict individuals and networks associated with child sexual exploitation. As a non -profit, their mission is made possible through the generous support of individuals and from partnerships with private organizations. This allows them to integrate their CRC technology
into law enforcement agencies in all 50 US states and 97 countries for free. The technology has been pivotal in identifying and indexing millions of IP addresses linked to the sharing of child sexual abuse material. They have created a vast catalog of known abusers that helps identify new and potential offenders while ranking the severity of predators to prevent real -time abuse.
Now this podcast was recorded live at the recent meetup for the Child Rescue Coalition Tech Gala, which was the seventh national event for this highly important mission. The inspirational evening featured an elegant dinner along with a live and silent auction in a bid to raise funds for this extremely important cause. Whilst there, I managed to speak with five individuals who either worked for the C .O .S .C.
Adam Firman (02:28.206)
or are heavily involved with the work being done by the coalition. I managed to catch up with Kelvin Lay, MBE. He's a director of engagement and risk at the nonprofit organization, ChildLight. I also caught up with Jay Houston, the director of training at Child Rescue Coalition and is also a founding board member of Raven. I then caught up with Cerys Evans, who is an intelligence manager with the NCA in the UK.
I also caught up with Emily Meacham, who is a director of development at the Child Rescue Coalition. And my final guest for this podcast was Tom Farrell, QPM, who is the director of innovation at the Child Rescue Coalition. So without any further ado, let us join this extremely talented set of guests and hear what they had to say about the CRC and the great work that is being done to combat child sexual exploitation.
Adam Firman (03:27.342)
Thank you very much for joining me, Kelvin. If you could just give an introduction yourself and your current position. Hi, nice to be here. My name is Kelvin Lay. I'm currently the Director of Engagement at Risk at Child Life, which is a seat of learning based within the University of Edinburgh, which combines academia and law enforcement and is looking at the prevalence and nature of child exploitation across the globe. And for those of people under well, I think most people know Edinburgh, but that's in Scotland in the UK. Edinburgh, Scotland, yes.
Could you give our listeners a brief summary of how you came to be working in this industry space and your background, please? Yeah, so I sort of fell across it really. I was sort of involved in undercover work more generally. And at that time they were setting up the Child Exploitation Online Protection Center, specifically their undercover role. And I was invited to get involved in that. So from doing football violence, I went on to child exploitation and started working with other.
officers setting up the UK's first undercover unit doing that. So going online and pretending to be a pedophile or pretending to be a vulnerable 13 year old girl. It was a bit of a change from what I've been doing previously. So went through that and then went on to working with the section 72, which is a extra territorial prosecutions. So going overseas and working with foreign law enforcement to bring UK nationals who were offending against kids anywhere in the world.
either prosecuting them in country or bringing them back to the UK and prosecuting them here. Yeah. And how did you end up in your current role? Yeah. So I retired from law enforcement going back to 2019 and went straight on to work for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, doing very, very similar. And fate took a bit of a strange turn then, and because of a unit that I'd set up in Kenya, the US State Department International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, IML.
I liked what I'd done there and asked me to go across and work with them in Somalia, which was a bit of a strange career choice. So I ended up living in a shipping container in Mogadishu for a couple of years, working on the realignment of Somalia's response to serious and complex crime. Not really engaging with child exploitation. And I've got to say that, you know, the satisfaction and the job satisfaction wasn't there. And then...
Adam Firman (05:49.614)
Paul Stamford, who's the CEO of Childlight, knew I was there, made contact with me and invited me across to start Childlight with him, which has been hugely rewarding in the last 18 months since I've been there. That sounds brilliant. You're obviously here with CRC for the gala and for this event. What makes working with Child Rescue Coalition so vital? So part of the role of Childlight is to look at the prevalence in nature. So...
we made a very, very conscious decision right at the very start that we needed to contact all of the big data holders across the sector. I've worked with CRC previously and obviously knew of Tom and Simon. So we made an approach in relation to gaining access to that data. And as you'd expect, CRC were extremely accommodating and more than happy to work with us as they saw the end result. So CRC have been sort of the leading light in not only providing their data, but...
persuading others to do the same. Yeah. And bringing all that data together for once and actually getting a true perspective of actually what's going on in relation to child exploitation globally. Yeah. And you've been in law enforcement, I've been in law enforcement, and we know that sometimes we can, it can work in silos. And that's what CRC are doing, is that they're bridging those silos. Exactly that. Yeah. And they really should be commended for that. Those silos are being bridged and for many, many years, particularly sort of the tech side of law enforcement of, you know,
if they're doing an exam, they'd have had their arm over the answers and CRC are removing that arm and allowing people to see what the true extent and the prevalence of child exploitation really is and bringing that to the attention of governments and other tech companies. That's great. And we're both here for the gala and we're recording this a day ahead of the gala. What are you hoping to achieve from attending the gala? Well, on a personal note, I guess a little bit of networking in relation to Childlight, getting the name Childlight out there and
shouting what we're doing from the rafters, if those that haven't heard of us. We've only been around a year, so I think for the first 12 months we've made quite a lot of noise, but I intend to make a little bit more noise, yeah. But I'd love to see as much money as possible raised for CRC so that they can continue doing the great work that they're doing. That's great, and thank you very much for giving up some of your time whilst you've been here. You're very welcome. Thank you.
Adam Firman (08:13.806)
Okay, so we've got another guest joining us. Please could you introduce yourself and your current position? Yeah, so my name is Jay Houston. I'm from Mississippi here in the US and my current role is Director of Training for Child Rescue Coalition. Perfect. And could you give us our listeners a brief summary of how you came to be working in this sort of very niche industry? How long does your listeners have? So I was a police officer in Mississippi.
1997 went to the police academy and 2007 was kind of about a turning point in my career, my law enforcement career. And this is an absolute true story. My boss for the attorney who later became my boss at the attorney general's office called me up and asked me if I want to be a 13 year old girl online. And when she asked me that, I was like, what are you talking about? Cause I've been working in narcotics. I didn't work in the streets and went and met with them. Cause I have three daughters.
I went and met with them and they started explaining this side of the internet, these investigations that had to do with child exploitation. I never even heard of this. I've been in law enforcement for 10 years this time. So I took the job as the very first, what we would call in the US ICAC, Internet Crimes Against Children Investigator, started in 2008. And when I tell you I knew nothing about computers, I knew nothing about computers.
and just started learning this, would go to an investigative course or an undercover chat course, would go to these courses and learn. And then I'd make friends with the instructors and I would call them after and sort of how I got started. And after a period of time, my boss retired and I became the internet crimes against children commander for the state of Mississippi and decided to be a computer forensic examiner. And then did like most people followed that up with mobile device forensics. Yeah.
And did that successfully for 13 years, retired in 2021. Yeah. And this industry, like you say, it's a very welcoming and we're all in that together space. Yes. And I've never asked a question and been made to feel that it was a stupid question. People are always there to help you in this industry. Everyone that I have ever asked a question about, because that's the only reason I'm here and learning and kind of feel like that I've gained a lot of knowledge.
Adam Firman (10:42.414)
in this industry or in this field of investigations is because of people that I trusted in and they would share. If I had a question, I'd go to them and they'd say, hey, this is how this works or try this, try that. And especially from teaching law enforcement. I mean, when you teach a class, as an instructor, you don't know everything and you learn different methods and simply as a interview and interrogation technique or you know your...
mobile device tool run faster if you do this. And you're like, I wouldn't even think of that. Yeah. Yeah. And what does your current role involve? Oh, good gracious. Um, so I am the director of training for child rescue coalition. So my current role is, uh, teach as many law enforcement officers as I can, how to use the CPS technology. Uh, it is proven over the years to be so reliable, so successful in these cases, because you legitimately have kids sitting inside of a house and
The only way that law enforcement will get there is through outside information, whether that be our technology or a cyber tip or a report is filed and that child is sitting there waiting for somebody to come rescue her. Yeah, that's great work. And now for people who aren't currently working with Child Rescue Coalition, what makes it vital to be working with CRC?
So if you are listening to this and you are a law enforcement officer and you would like access to technology to proactively investigate these guys, please reach out to us. Allow us to have a conversation no matter where you are in the world. Cause if I understand people listen to your podcast from all over the world, if you can just listen to one thing is contact us so we can partner together and we can demonstrate our technology and how you can proactively investigate this.
and use it in your local jurisdiction. And I'll put a link in the podcast comments to your LinkedIn profile so people can reach out. Perfect. Thanks, sir. And we're here for the Child Rescue Kirlishen Gala and we're recording the day ahead of that, which is happening tomorrow. What are you hoping to achieve for Child Rescue Kirlishen from that Gala? Man, it's so much for me because I've always gone to the Gala as a law enforcement officer until I retired.
Adam Firman (13:03.758)
I received the instructor of the year award in 2022, but it's, you know, you get around police officers and we talk about this field, but when you go to the gala, you get to meet the people that could, uh, our contributors. You get to meet the person that paid $25 a month for the last four years, or you get to meet the people that have given thousands and thousands of dollars. And, you know, it's just refreshing to meet them and shake their hand because you know, we're, this takes money.
for this technology and development and new ideas, new areas, new programming requires money. That's the first thing. The second thing is, is that I get to hang out with the heroes in the room and that's those cops that are there, those law enforcement officers that are still boots on the ground. Yeah. And I think for you and I both being ex law enforcement, that's the part of the job where you're talking about. Oh man, it's fantastic. So what about you? Like what, what, if I could ask you, what are you, what are you like the most about the Gala?
So the Gala that I'm looking forward to the most is meeting the guys and girls who are on the ground, still doing the job. And it's about the networking, isn't it? About helping each other exactly like we just said. That's the part I look forward to. I like showing people why you still doing it that way. Have you thought about this? And it's not a, I know more because we don't work that in this space. That's the point. That's the point. I'm glad you said that. Yeah. And that's what I'm looking forward to. But thank you very much for giving up.
more of your time first and then looking forward to the gala. Yeah, brother. Thank you, sir.
Adam Firman (14:38.542)
Hello, and we have another guest joining us for this special podcast. So please, can you introduce yourself and give your current position? Yeah. Hi, I'm Cerys Evans. I am an intelligence manager at the National Crime Agency. I work in the intelligence team, working with child sexual abuse investigations. And for our listeners, we have Global Law and it's a national crime agency in the UK. Yes. Sorry. Apologies. Yeah.
The National Crime Agency, we are a national law enforcement agency within the United Kingdom. So within the UK, we have the 43 territorial police forces, but we also then have our national agency. We have some other law enforcement agencies smattering in there as well. I work within the National Crime Agency. And the NCA is a way of because police for police establishments across the globe generally like.
working in silos. And like you said, we have many different police establishments in the UK. So the NCA is a good way of sort of bridging those gaps and helping to bring the more complex investigations together. Yeah, absolutely. So the NCA, you know, we are not here to replace, you know, police forces or UK policing or step on anybody's toes. I was actually in a UK police force before I joined the NCA. But the NCA work with other
intelligence partners, international agencies, which provides us with the ability to use specialist capabilities, that maybe smaller police forces don't have the resources or time to deal with. And obviously, of course, we have those further reaching relationships as well, which enables more joined up working and just better capabilities. So, you know, the NCA, you know, they don't we don't cherry pick investigations, you know, there are
some investigations that are going to result in incredible outcomes in terms of safeguarding lots of children and putting really bad people in jail that sit way better with the police force because they're going to need to engage with local authorities like schools and etc. But then there'll be investigations likewise that have international elements or require really niche capabilities.
Adam Firman (17:03.758)
that would better sit with us. So it's about all working together. And, you know, the NCA and the police forces, I can only speak from child sexual abuse perspective, but we have, you know, boards and try to be joined up with each other and talk as much as possible. And certainly in my team, I try and engage with the police forces a lot with some of the work that we do as well so we can all collaborate and support each other and work together.
And that's a great summary and you lead me nicely on to my next question, which is, can you give our listeners a summary of how you ended up to be working in this sort of industry space, which is quite niche? And you sort of said that you came from another police force. Yeah, I mean, I ended up kind of in the police. I say by accident, but not really by accident. I never intended to do this. It's not I didn't have this burning desire as a child to, you know, find online child sex offenders.
I trained in psychology, so I qualified, I did my bachelor's in psychology. I then did my master's in investigative and forensic psychology at the University of Liverpool, where I was actually exposed to a lot of academic research with policing, which was really cool. I've always found offenders really interesting.
like from a psychological perspective, I always knew I was going to kind of maybe get on the forensic route. I kind of wanted to get on the clinical forensic route. And what that means for anyone who's not an idea about psychology is, you know, working with the clinical population is those who is individuals who require additional support who have mental health needs. And then the forensic population are those who have engaged with our criminal justice system. So I really wanted to work in like clinical forensic where those intersect.
were victims. And, but it's actually a really hard space to get into. So I did my masters, I started working doing the next like, level of your qualification, which is supervised practice. And realized that I didn't want to do supervised practice in a forensic setting, but to then go into a clinical setting would require fighting tooth and nail for an assistant psychology position, which we had stepped down from what I was doing and
Adam Firman (19:23.854)
then hoping I could get onto a doctorate training course. It was just a lot. Yeah. Um, and I just really wanted to be not doing a job I didn't like, but also not taking steps backwards or going back to school, which none of us would want to know. So I was like, well, how else can I work in this space? And then I genuinely was just like, well, sex offenders are really interesting. I've always loved like those documentaries and whatever. Um, so I applied to like three sexual offenses teams.
in sorry police, like direct entry as a civilian investigator. So I applied to the safeguarding team, the sexual offences investigation team, and the paedophile online investigation team. And I was really, really fortunate to be offered a position in the paedophile online investigation team, which was the one I was most interested in. And my inspector and the, my, so my DIMI DS, the sergeant and the inspector at the time.
They were like, we're taking a real gamble on you because you are so green. You're just out of university. You've never investigated a thing in your life. And so they put me on like a temporary contract and they were like, we'll see how you get on. And they really threw me in the deep end. Like I was grading images like day two, no day one, day one I was grading images. I was like sat down with a list. I suppose it's, it's quite a good baptism of fire because no one, you can never prepare yourself for that. And it's, it's one of those.
I remember my sergeant and I joined our unit. He said, you're either going to be able to deal with this or you're not. So I suppose they want kind of make sense. And to be fair, they were really upfront with me when I had my interview. And then when they offered me the job, they were like, how do you think you're going to handle this? And I was like, well, we're doing it for a good reason. You know, I'm not going to enjoy it. I mean, that would be, I mean, you should investigate me if I did, do you know what I mean?
I was like, it's not going to be enjoyable, but also like you're doing it with a purpose. And I said, you know, I'm a very pragmatic person. And I was like, and also if I can't cope with it, then I guess I'll have to do something else. And they were like, okay, good attitude. So then they just, yeah, threw me in the deep end. Day two, I was on a warrant. And then they actually, yeah, put me on a permanent contract quite quickly, which was good. And then I...
Adam Firman (21:42.254)
picked up a lot of our intelligence responsibilities. So as a civilian investigator, so I did like my PIP two qualification, which is an investigative qualification, I'm sure you know. So I've done all my interview training and stuff, but as well as investigating cases. Because of my background academically, I kind of picked up all of the intelligence work in our department at the time. We didn't have any specific intelligence officers in the team at the time, we later then did. But it was
off the back of that, that I started like managing and overseeing our, and this obviously wasn't overnight, this all happened and not necessarily in this order, but I sort of managed our incoming NECMEC referrals from the NCA because the NCA send those to these forces. And anything that would come into our team, I would sort of review it, triage it, suggest how we'd handle it. And I was also responsible for our,
uh using the intelligence systems that are provided to us by the child rescue coalition, which is obviously why you're talking to me today. Um, and then it was because of that that I ended up going on secondment to the NCA. I then became permanent at the NCA. Um, I do other things as well as, um, the intelligence work specific to the intelligence systems from CRC. That's just part of my job now. I also do some capability development to improve.
our volume processes and also just improving how we can best respond to the threat, current trends and trying to bring technology into how we work, which is really fun and cool. Yeah, it sounds really interesting. And that's one thing I always say to people when they talk about law enforcement is that you can go in and start in one direction and you can end up in a complete opposite. So you're a perfect example of that really.
Yeah, I mean, I've always sort of sat in this silo. I, you know, did some time in our sexual investigation team as well. You know, people get you know, it's like, you do get pulled around. Yeah, as a civilian, you have a little bit more protection, but even still, I have primarily just stayed in the child sexual abuse case, space, just because I don't know, like other crime types is
Adam Firman (23:57.038)
that crime is so impactful on everybody's lives and investigating them is obviously therefore so important to society. But I'm not motivated to get out of bed in the morning and go investigate burglaries. Yeah, like the people who get burgled, it's life altering, it's horrible. But for me, I just don't have the drive to deal with that. But this is just, yeah, it's the reward that you receive in this case. Yeah, it's really rewarding. Yeah.
It is. It's always quite clear cut as well. You know you're doing a really good thing. Yeah. You can sort of be like, okay, like I'm doing the right thing here. So it's very clear cut. And you touched on working with Child Rescue Coalition. For any law enforcement people out there who are listening to this, why is it vital to be working with establishments like Child Rescue Coalition? Yeah, so Child Rescue Coalition, I'm sure you've...
covered introduction because I think this is a podcast about them. Yeah, so you've probably covered a lot of stuff about what they do. One of the things they do is provide technology to law enforcement. Some of that technology, you know, provides us with investigative leads. So intelligence, you know, we consider an intelligence system, you know, they let us know through technological means about offenders in the UK who are committing online child sexual offenses.
their technology is free. And, you know, we can we can be proactive, we don't have to wait to receive a referral and say a bad thing's happening. We can proactively police the UK. So it's really nice to have, you know, proactive tools in our toolbox. Because it's really important to UK law enforcement and to the NCA that we
proactively tackle this threat, you know, and actively and proactively safeguard children in our community. Rather than be reactive when it is too late. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think like CRC, I mean, my experiences with them have only ever been positive. I was first trained on their technology in 2016. I then immediately finished my course, went back to
Adam Firman (26:22.702)
sorry police, I was like, oh, this is really cool. Like I know a bit more about this now and you know, really excited. And then I was like, oh, how does this work? And what does this do? And I just started harassing Bill Wiltsie, who is their president and he was so nice about it. But he probably found me really annoying because I just would email him like, oh, and what about this? And what is this? And
But he was always so so nice and so responsive and I didn't realize he was the president I probably wouldn't have like harassed the president of an organization if I'd known But I was just put in touch with him was I he'll be able to answer your question And I think you know the fact that they have a president who's so approachable because his drive and from everyone I've met their drive is to just support us doing our jobs and and that special and you shown that nature of
your investigative mind is and that leads me nicely on to the final question and at the at the gala tomorrow you're going to be receiving investigator of the year award so high accolade and many congratulations to that apart from receiving that award because of your thoroughness what else are you looking forward to from the gala tomorrow evening um i mean yeah it's it's nice to obviously um be told what's on it's um
it feels a little uncomfortable, which is fun. But it is nice. And I think as well, you know, like it's obviously it goes without saying that you don't receive an award like that for working in isolation. Like I'm part of a team and everyone who I work with, you know, works just as hard if not harder, has done for years. And I think the gala is quite nice because I've only been once before but it was a it was a really nice evening that you know, there's always,
a really impactful guest speaker. Like you get the opportunity to hear from survivors, which really grounds, really grounds and reinforces the work you do in this space. You get the opportunity to meet other law enforcement from across the globe who also use the technology. And you can learn a lot from talking with people from other jurisdictions about how they use it. You know, everyone is so unique and so clever and we all have different challenges.
Adam Firman (28:42.446)
but we also face similar challenges. So it's a great opportunity to talk to your global peers and learn from each other, as well as obviously actually, you know, just sort of like taking some time to have a nice evening and celebrate, I guess, everyone's accomplishments. It's just, it's a very nice evening. So yeah, I'm looking forward to that. That's great. And congratulations once again. I hope you enjoy the evening. Thank you. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you.
Adam Firman (29:14.958)
So I'm pleased to say we have yet another person who joined us for today's special podcast. Please, can you introduce yourself and your current position, please? Yes, I'm Emily Neacham. I'm the Director of Development for Child Rescue Coalition. And could you give our listeners a brief summary of how you came to be working for Child Rescue Coalition and in this niche industry space, please, Emily? Yeah, absolutely. So my background has always been my whole professional career.
with nonprofit organizations. I knew from a young age that I wanted to do something that was going to make an impact on the world. I didn't want to work for a corporate company where all they care about are the dollar signs. So I wanted to do something where I knew I was making a difference. Originally from Washington state, my husband and I moved over to Florida. And during that move, I was looking for nonprofits that would be worthwhile. They would align with...
your beliefs. Exactly. And I first started a nonprofit organization over on the west coast of Florida, where their mission is to essentially rescue survivors who've been sex trafficked all over the country in the US. They had two safe houses in Florida, one in Chicago, and a couple other branches here and there scattered throughout the United States. And that's really how I
kind of got into this space. A lot of the survivors that we worked with and that would come into our program, a lot of them were abused, sexually abused at a young age, under the age of 18. And that cycle of abuse kind of led into trafficking and other dangerous situations. And I knew from there, what can I do to get ahead of the issue? Because we knew that from this survivor being...
sexually abused at a young age, like that was kind of leading into, like I said, all this horrible stuff. So to get ahead of the issue, working with an organization that combats child sexual abuse head on. So that's where I found Child Rescue Coalition. Just researching and looking at organizations that are truly doing the work, being in the nonprofit space, you never really know. There's thousands of nonprofits here in the United States, hundreds of thousands maybe.
Adam Firman (31:40.846)
But you really want to align yourself with a the beliefs and their mission and you need to find the ones that are truly making an impact not just saying that they're they're making an impact. So I found CRC and after a lot of research funny story I actually emailed the info box and I said hey like love what you guys do. I want to be a part of this. You know is there opening or how can I support or.
And Carly, our founder and CEO at the time, she replied back to me and her and I just started talking and we built this relationship. And honestly, it was because of her passion and I could just tell like what she did with Child Rescue Coalition and still continues to do is mind blowing. There's nothing else out there that I know of like CRC. We're truly making.
a huge impact in the child protection space and the technology that Child Rescue Coalition has, I personally feel, and I may be biased, is unmatched, right? And they're truly doing the good work. So yeah. Well, it certainly sounds like a perfect match. You spoke about Penny's passion, but clearly she could see your passion and hence why you're part of Child Rescue Coalition today. Yes. And what makes
How long did you say that you've worked for Child Rescue Coalition for now? Yeah, so I am. I've been with CRC for almost two years. So it really hasn't been a ton of time. But honestly, it feels like I've been here forever. And it feels like this is where I should have always landed. And you say that the work they're doing is extremely impressive. And I've seen it and I've I used to work with one of your colleagues and I've seen the end product and how it helped victims.
For people who aren't using this technology, what can you say about what CRC does that would be vital to help them in their mission? Right. So from like a law enforcement perspective or just supporters in general or people in general? Yeah, just people in general. Oh, gosh, there's a plethora of different things. I think, you know, Child Rescue Coalition is a nonprofit organization and its core is the technology that we offer to law enforcement free of charge to identify, arrest and prosecute child predators.
Adam Firman (34:03.726)
I'm going to throw in some stats because I think they're really impressive. We like stats. Right. And so since, well, it's actually 11 years now, we just celebrated our 10 year anniversary last year of being a nonprofit. And since inception, we have arrested over 15 ,200 child predators. We've rescued over 3 ,500 children from sexual abuse and exploitation. From the beginning, we were in about
roughly 30, 40 countries. We're now at 103 countries with officers trained. And we don't want to charge a dime for the technology, right? Because we know it's a law enforcement's secret weapon, essentially, right? And we know that law enforcement, they're going to use our tool to be the boots on the ground to identify these bad guys and to arrest them and rescue countless hundreds of thousands of children. You know, the more law enforcement we can get trained, that's a better way that we can tackle this.
But from let's just say a parent's point of view, you know We also want to offer our education and resources on how to get ahead of the issue, right? So how to keep your kids safe online We're in this digital age technology Kids at young ages have cell phones. They're on apps. They're on video games They're essentially talking to strangers people that they don't even know
I think it's not so much the creeper in the van pulling up to the park and asking a kid for candy anymore, even though that still does happen. But predators are smart. They know that kids are online more than ever these days. So that's where they're going to be luring these children and grooming these children. So how can we safeguard them through these resources? And so we try to do our best to stay on top of everything that's going on, especially as technology changes, we are going to adapt and change too.
Now that it sounds, obviously I've worked with CRC for a lot, a lot of years. So I seen the impact and lived part of it. So, um, it's amazing. We're here today on the back, on the back of some CPS training that's been taking place and tomorrow we have an amazing night to look forward to in the gala. What are you hoping to achieve from the CRC gala? It's a great question. You know, I think number one is awareness, whether it's a gala here in South Florida.
Adam Firman (36:26.638)
We're a global organization. So it's amazing to see yourself and most other people come in from all over the country and the world. And we really want to share and celebrate all the amazing things that we're doing together. Because when people think of child sexual abuse and exploitation, especially what we're doing to tackle the issue head on, they wanna say, oh, it's a dark topic. I don't wanna talk about it. Like I wanna.
close my ears, shut my eyes. I don't want to think about it because it is really heavy. But Child Rescue Coalition, we're truly trying to bring a light into a dark situation, right? We have the solution, our technology. And so our galas, it's not a traumatizing event. It's an event to celebrate. Look at all the stuff that we've, all the things, all the arrests, all the children rescued that we've done together. We can't work in a silo, especially.
tackling such a big problem, we can't do it alone and it takes everyone in that room, people who even couldn't make it, the law enforcement that couldn't make it, it takes all of us. So getting the word out, saying hey, look what we're doing together, let's celebrate all the amazing accomplishments we're doing and raising vital funds to keep our technology free. Like I said before, we are going to adapt to these new spaces of the internet where child predators are lurking and
it cost development? It costs, you know, it definitely has some dollar signs behind that. And we, as a nonprofit, you know, we want to continue to keep that technology free. And we want to continue to get into these spaces where we can identify even more predators. So raising those vital funds are going to help us continue our mission to protect children no matter what. Thank you. And thank you to CRC for the work you're doing. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow night.
and thank you for joining me. Oh, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
Adam Firman (38:29.486)
We're fortunate to have another guest join us for this special CRC podcast. So please, can you introduce yourself and your current position? Hi, Adam. So I'm Tom Farrell. We've met many times before. So I work within the operational team at Child Rescue Coalition, and I'm responsible for looking after our core technology, which we provide to law enforcement for a charge, and also managing some of the relationships we have with academia.
Like you say, we've spoken before, but if somebody's listened to this podcast for the first time and they don't know who Tom Farrell is, can you give us a brief summary of how you ended up working for CRC and how you ended up in this quite niche industry? Sure. So I was a police officer from 2002 onwards. And in 2014, I had an opportunity to go on a course that I didn't really know much about apart from it was to identify people who share child sexual abuse material. Went on that course, it was a CRC led course.
began to use the software straight away and ended up doing hundreds if not in excess of a thousand cases using CRC software for law enforcement. And for people who aren't aware of what CRC can do and they're out there in law enforcement, why is it vital that they should be using it? Well, I mean, so one of the limitations for law enforcement is often finance. Yeah. Well, all our tools that we provide to law enforcement are free of charge. Yeah.
It's a key thing. We don't want finance to be a prohibiting factor. We will train people, we'll go to where they need to be trained, we'll get people to training courses. And I always describe it as what we do is we offer a window into a world of what might be going on behind closed doors. So we give law enforcement leads to tell them somebody who is in possession of child sexual abuse material, quite often they'll then go and arrest that person and...
fairly regularly they'll find that they were actually a hands -on abuser as well. So it's protecting children really is the basis of it and then we also arrest the people that are the offenders. Yeah and so that's the main ethics behind it is free for law enforcement, you want them using the technology to help find predators who then eventually could be live abuse, the worst case scenario. Yeah absolutely so yeah it's focusing on the protection of children.
Adam Firman (40:53.166)
respecting the rights of victims and survivors because these people are watching the worst moments of their lives repeatedly. So we're helping law enforcement stop those people doing that. And you say about your work with law enforcement, are you working in any other sort of industries to help and to promote the work the CRC are doing? Yeah, so as I said, part of my role is academia. So we work with a couple of academic organisations in the UK, Anglia Ruskin Policing Institute for the Eastern Region, PEAR.
and also the Child Light Data Institute out at the University of Edinburgh. So our approach with that in summary really is to work with academics to prove that the way we're trying to tackle the problem is effective, but also trying to identify patterns, trends, pathways to offending, the whole range of things so that there's a better understanding of how child sexual abuse operates and how we can prevent it. Yeah. So...
rather than just look at it from a technological point of view, you're starting to look at the entire picture. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's like the whole ecosystem of it. If there are ways that we can help prevent things happening in the first place, that's clearly way better than just targeting people after they've committed offenses. And we're here in the United States at the moment because there's some CRC training going on with the technology and we're recording this a day ahead of the gala tomorrow. What are you looking forward to and hoping to achieve from the gala for Child Rescue Care Mission tomorrow?
So the Gala often comes or always comes at the end of our instructor updates. We get our instructors together who are law enforcement officers nearly always. We give them the updates, we upskill them and make sure that they're ready to do the job for the next year. And that always ends with the Gala. Now the Gala is a celebration. It's also an opportunity to raise funds for Child Rescue Coalition. I came to the very first one back in 2015.
Probably what I'm looking forward to most at this one is we, so every year we recognize people who are stars in our field really. And so we're gonna be awarding our instructor of the year to Herrickson from Brazil, who is an unbelievable instructor. And I'm also pleased we're gonna be giving our investigator of the year to Cerys from the National Crime Agency as recognition of eight or nine years of just constant work with our software.
Adam Firman (43:16.59)
And we heard from her earlier and her passion and how far she is with her investing. It's clearly, I can see why she's won that award. So it's great. That's a great way to celebrate people and to raise funds so you can continue giving this technology for free to law enforcement. Yep. And that's always got to be the aim. We need to, we're an NGO. We were set up as a charity and we need to always make sure we've got enough funds so that law enforcement not only get the software free,
we're in a position to update the software so it keeps up with developing trends. Yeah, which is part of this industry through and through. It's constantly changing. People are finding new loopholes and your software has to react to that. That's correct. Yeah. But Tom, I just want to say thank you very much for giving up some of your time and joining us. And we'll both look forward to a very successful gala tomorrow evening. Thank you.
Adam Firman (44:17.582)
Well, I hope you enjoyed that catch up with an extremely impressive group of individuals. And I'm sure you will all agree that they're all passionate about this important mission and all working tirelessly to help combat child sexual exploitation. Now I'm pleased to report that the gala was a huge success. I will read out the quote from the CRC following this annual gala.
They're incredibly grateful for all the love and support at the seventh annual Tech with Heart Gala. Thank you to everyone who made last night very special. Your heart for our mission helps makes what we do together successful by protecting the innocent lives of young children. We raised over $566 ,000 during our gala to identify, arrest, and prosecute predators and rescue innocent children from sexual abuse.
and exploitation. Now, I just want to say thank you once again to the five guests who gave up their precious time to join me on this special edition of Forensic Fix. And I will, of course, link their contact details in the show notes in case you wanted to connect with them and potentially see how you can work with CRC to help combat this important mission. But thank you to our listeners for joining us for episode 15 of Forensic Fix. And we'll join us again soon.
to hear from some more outstanding people in the world of DFIR. Thank you.