30 Seconds to Take out Human Trash
 

Ladies and gents,

TL;DR--the TraffickCam app is a non-profit tool that allows us to submit photos of hotel rooms that may correlate to photos of kids being sold. I assess this as legitimate. Find it here: https://traffickcam.com/

The longer version: my understanding from the Exchange Initiative (a non-profit) is that darknet ads for children often include photos of the subject in a hotel room. EI worked with Washington University St. Louis to create a website, iOS app and Android app titled TraffickCam that makes it easy to submit photos of hotel rooms to a database available to law enforcement. If a room can be matched to the database, hopefully the authorities can rescue the kid. I'm only slightly less hopeful that the perpetrator justifies his own swift end, saving me tax dollars and removing one example of human vermin from the ranks of the living.

As airline pilots, I figure we are in a unique position to help this effort given the number and variety of hotel rooms we see. I have made it part of my check-in routine (right after PLUG IN SURFACE and before BEER) to take two shots of the room and one of the bathroom. It takes 30" or less. The app is well mechanized and the photos do not stay on your phone (so you don't have to delete them later).

I have no idea if anybody has been caught or freed using this database. As of this afternoon there were 1,584,844 images in the database. If 30" of my life before my layover beer saves a kid, though, that makes me happy. No promises, maybe I'm wasting my time. If we were to all take photos of our rooms, though, I imagine we would build quite the sample of rooms.

Want in? Download the app and add it to your layover routine. And tell your buddies.

Sparky