This week I joined the INHOPE Summit in Dublin. I’m grateful I did.
INHOPE brings together the people at the heart of the global response to child sexual abuse material online: hotline staff, analysts, law enforcement, researchers and many others. Spending time with them was a humbling reminder of what this work really is.
Behind every report is a child
I’ve spent more than 25 years working in machine learning. In my field, it’s easy to talk about data, models and accuracy as if they were abstract. In Dublin, nothing about this work felt abstract.
Behind every report is a child. Behind every hotline is a team who look at the hardest content imaginable, day after day, so that the rest of us don’t have to. That work takes skill, resilience and care, and it’s been going on quietly for many years before most technology companies paid attention.
What it means for the way we build
I left with more questions than answers. A few of them will shape how we work at Tuteliq.
Every alert lands on someone’s desk. When a detection system flags something, a person has to act on it. A model that produces too many false positives doesn’t just waste time. It adds to the load on people who are already looking at deeply distressing material. Accuracy isn’t only a technical metric. It’s a way of respecting the people who do this work.
Prevention upstream matters. Hotlines deal with harm that has already happened. Tuteliq’s focus is on spotting the early signs of grooming and exploitation as they develop, so that platforms can step in before abuse occurs. The more we can prevent at the start, the fewer children end up behind a report.
Technology has to fit the system, not replace it. Hotlines, law enforcement, researchers and platforms each hold part of the picture. Our role is to help platforms play their part well, and to connect into the work this community has already built, not to reinvent it.
Still learning
We’re still a young company, and we have a lot to learn. I’m thankful to everyone who took the time to share their experience, challenge our thinking and make us welcome.
Thank you to the INHOPE team for bringing everyone together, and to everyone I met in Dublin. I look forward to continuing these conversations.
Every child deserves to be safe online. That takes all of us working together.