Human Trafficking Online: The Role of Social Media and Online Classifieds

Examines the role of online technologies in human trafficking and ways to leverage them for actionable, data-driven, real-time information to help victims. Calls for action by governments, tech firms, and NGOs to address the problem

Robots Welcome? Ethical and Legal Considerations for Web Crawling and Scraping

Web crawlers are widely used software programs designed to automatically search the online universe to find and collect information. The data that crawlers provide help make sense of the vast and often chaotic nature of the Web. Crawlers find websites and content that power search engines and online marketplaces. As people and organizations put an ever-increasing amount of information online, tech companies and researchers deploy more advanced algorithms that feed on that data. Even governments and law enforcement now use crawlers to carry out their missions. Despite the ubiquity of crawlers, their use is ambiguously regulated largely by online social norms whereby webpage headers signal whether automated “robots” are welcome to crawl their sites. As courts take on the issues raised by web crawlers, user privacy hangs in the balance. In August 2017, the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction in such a case, deciding that LinkedIn’s website must be open to such crawlers. In March 2018, the District Court for the District of Columbia granted standing for an as-applied challenge to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to a group of academic researchers and a news organization. The Court allowed them to proceed with a case in which they now allege the law’s making a violation of website Terms of Service a crime effectively prohibits web crawling and infringes on their First Amendment Rights. In addition, news media is inundated with stories like Cambridge Analytica wherein web crawlers were used to scrape data from millions of Facebook accounts for political purposes. This paper discusses the history of web crawlers in courts as well as the uses of such programs by a wide array of actors. It addresses ethical and legal issues surrounding the crawling and scraping of data posted online for uses not intended by the original poster or by the website on which the information is hosted. The article further suggests that stronger rules are necessary to protect the users’ initial expectations about how their data would be used, as well as their privacy

The Rise of Mobile and the Diffusion of Technology-Facilitated Trafficking

In this report, researchers at the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP) reveal how those involved in human trafficking have been quick to adapt to the 21st-century global landscape. While the rapid diffusion of digital technologies such as mobile phones, social networking sites, and the Internet has provided significant benefits to society, new channels and opportunities for exploitation have also emerged. Increasingly, the business of human trafficking is taking place online and over mobile phones. But the same technologies that are being used for trafficking can become a powerful tool to combat trafficking. The precise role that digital technologies play in human trafficking still remains unclear, however, and a closer examination of the phenomenon is vital to identify and respond to new threats and opportunities.This investigation indicates that mobile devices and networks have risen in prominence and are now of central importance to the sex trafficking of minors in the United States. While online platforms such as online classifieds and social networking sites remain a potential venue for exploitation, this research suggests that technology facilitated trafficking is more diffuse and adaptive than initially thought. This report presents a review of current literature, trends, and policies; primary research based on mobile phone data collected from online classified sites; a series of firsthand interviews with law enforcement; and key recommendations to policymakers and stakeholders moving forward

Technology and Labor Trafficking: in a Network Society - General Overview, Emerging Innovations, and Phillippines Case Study

New information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become an integral part of the networks that underpin labor trafficking in the 21st Century. Yet little research exists on the impact of technology in exacerbating or addressing the isolation, fraud, force, and/or coercion so often at the heart of trafficking cases. There is a lack of evidence-based research on any relationship between technology and labor trafficking either within or across national borders. To effectively intervene in labor trafficking, the impact of technology needs to be addressed by policy makers, governments, NGOs, researchers, and the private sector.This research report is the first to investigate the relationship between technology and labor trafficking. The evidence gathered and analyzed in this report is based on public documents, websites, interviews with key stakeholders in the US and internationally, and fieldwork in the Philippines. With little previous research on the topic, this study is inherently exploratory. Thus this report's primary goal is to frame technology's impact on labor trafficking and to establish a set of definitions, theories, terms, themes, recommendations, and principles that can guide future research and policy

On Digital Passages and Borders: Refugees and the New Infrastructure for Movement and Control

Since 2014, millions of refugees and migrants have arrived at the borders of Europe. This article argues that, in making their way to safe spaces, refugees rely not only on a physical but increasingly also digital infrastructure of movement. Social media, mobile devices, and similar digitally networked technologies comprise this infrastructure of “digital passages”—sociotechnical spaces of flows in which refugees, smugglers, governments, and corporations interact with each other and with new technologies. At the same time, a digital infrastructure for movement can just as easily be leveraged for surveillance and control. European border policies, in particular, instantiate digital controls over refugee movement and identity. We review the actors, technologies, and policies of movement and control in the EU context and argue that scholars, policymakers, and the tech community alike should pay heed to the ethics of the use of new technologies in refugee and migration flows