To simply put it, taking a picture of your hotel room could help stop human trafficking.
A new app called the TraffickCam developed by Abby Stylianou is enabling travelers to help law enforcement track down sex traffickers. Travelers submit pictures of hotel rooms they’re staying at around the world. According to TraffickCam’s 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. 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.
It’s really easy to do. Stylianou says, “You just enter your hotel room, and your room number. You take four pictures, and you submit them to the website. And then those become part of the pipeline that law enforcement can use to track down where the victims are being trafficked.”
Next time you’re staying in a hotel, snapping a few pictures could save a life.