We have been working on a project which will help protect the most vulnerable by using machine learning to help present a picture of risk.

Named Project CESIUM the work, which is funded by Innovate UK and in partnership with Trilateral Research with no cost to Lincolnshire Police, will identify areas of risk including vulnerability to sexual exploitation, and wider criminal exploitation which includes, although not exclusively, county lines and gang violence.

Detective Superintendent Jon McAdam, Head of Protecting Vulnerable Persons Unit at Lincolnshire Police explained: “This system will bring additional resource into Lincolnshire; it basically takes all the information we feed into it, collates it, and shows us a picture of risk in relation to Child Exploitation.

“We will be able to more easily and quickly see priorities because the software will basically take the labour strain. It will be doing the job a police officer or staff member would have to do in terms of reviewing cases so it can free them up to do other things.

“The system will give us a richer information and intelligence picture, as well as a ‘foundation’ of risk from which we can base our response.

“The important thing to say is that people are not being replaced by machines. All the information the system shows us will be subject to human analysis, and our officers and staff will use their knowledge, experience and training to formulate an appropriate response.

“It’s an exciting opportunity to further innovate our use of technology to improve our efficiency and will enable us to be even more effective in tackling this largely hidden crime that affects people who are amongst the most vulnerable. In Lincolnshire we have used technology to our advantage; our work with drones and Mobile Data Terminals, for example, has improved how we respond at a time when our people numbers are low and have been for some time.”

Work has started on Project CESIUM, which it is expected will take 14 months from date to completion, and will give police the chance to better understand risk and develop better early intervention strategies, meaning we may be able to further prevent people becoming victims and stop offences before they even happen.

Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones said: “Child exploitation is both a crime and morally repugnant and we must do everything within our power to catch and punish the criminals responsible as well as protect those most vulnerable to becoming their victims.

“I am proud that Lincolnshire is, once again, at the forefront of innovative work in this area.”

Kush Wadhwa, Director at Trilateral Research, said: “We are committed to developing systems and processes that support law enforcement and safeguarding organisations to improve their overall service and safeguard the vulnerable.

“This is an exciting and forward-thinking initiative, leveraging artificial intelligence in an inter-disciplinary environment to co-design new technology in a manner that embraces good practices in ethics, privacy and data protection.”

The National Crime Agency report and the Children’s Commissioner recognise that the true scale of children and young people being abused and exploited is difficult to determine and remains a clear intelligence gap. We do not know the real number of those affected and a large number of young people remain hidden without any support. (Intelligent Assessment. County Lines Drug Supply, Vulnerability and Harm 2018).

The Children’s Commissioner for England in 2018 warned that up to 30,000 to 50,000 young people could be affected in Britain by County Lines only, without taking into account other types of children exploitation (State of Children’s Rights in England 2018, Briefing 4: Safeguarding Children).

The technology behind Project CESIUM

The programme will use co-design methods and privacy-by-design, developing algorithms to identify risks.

Project CESIUM will be a use case empowering STRIAD®, Trilateral’s cloud-based data-driven risk

assessment platform, with disruptive algorithms. STRIAD platform is easily accessible, adaptable and scalable and will boost cooperation, allowing organisations to pool data in an ethical, secure and privacy-considerate manner, enabling ground-breaking analysis, rapid identification of risk and increase opportunities for early interventions to reduce harm.

To ensure that STRIAD platform supports use cases that are effective and fit-for-purpose, Trilateral Research has engaged with over 25 potential users in law enforcement and community safety partnerships, one being the project partner, Lincolnshire Police, who will join in the co-design process, and will be early adopters of the new solution. 

The project is also supported by NWG Exploitation Response Unit – a charitable organisation formed as a UK network of over 14,500 practitioners who disseminate information down through their services, to professionals working on the issue of child sexual exploitation (CSE) and trafficking within the UK.

Sheila Taylor MBE, CEO at NWG, said: “Child sexual exploitation has been recognised as a national threat, with other threats such as the criminal exploitation of children, including county lines activities. The NWG has supported professionals tackling child sexual exploitation since 2009 and is committed to ensuring the learning from tackling that form of exploitation is applied to address other forms of exploitation. We are delighted to be involved in this project, recognising the vital role technology can play in supporting professionals to safeguard children and disrupt exploitative behaviour.”