Still, it's a drop in the ocean of online child sexual abuse material in circulation. Since 2010, the nonprofit has trained about 12,000 law enforcement investigators globally. It's used in 95 other countries, including Canada, the U.K.
The Child Rescue Coalition gives its technology for free to law enforcement agencies, and it is used by about 8,500 investigators in all 50 states.
"They have made it so automated and simple that the guys are just sitting there waiting to be arrested." It's been huge," said Dennis Nicewander, assistant state attorney in Broward County, Florida, who has used the software to prosecute about 200 cases over the last decade. The Child Protection System "has had a bigger effect for us than any tool anyone has ever created. The tool looks for images that have been reported to or seized by police and categorized as depicting children under age 12. The Child Protection System, which lets officers search by country, state, city or county, displays a ranked list of the internet addresses downloading the most problematic files. The problem has intensified since the coronavirus lockdown, law enforcement officials say, as people spend more time online viewing and distributing illegal material.
It offers a way to quickly crack down on an illegal industry that has proved resilient against years of efforts to stop the flow of illegal images and videos. The tool, which was shown to NBC News earlier this year, is designed to help police triage child pornography cases so they can focus on the most persistent offenders at a time when they are inundated with reports. Cooper is one of more than 12,000 people arrested in cases flagged by the Child Protection System software over the past 10 years, according to the Child Rescue Coalition.