"In substance, we want to oppose paedophile rings with an international network of cyber-police."

Domenico Vulpiani, head of Italy’s police postal and communications squad

Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS)

Background

How CETS is helping police to crack down on child exploitation. Click here to watch the video.

In February 2003 Paul wrote an impassioned plea to Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Corporation, asking for assistance with some of the issues and challenges faced by law enforcement when conducting online child exploitation and child pornography investigations. Microsoft’s response exceeded all expectations – recognizing the magnitude of the situation and the important citizenship role that the company could play – they provided a team of dedicated resources to partner with the Toronto Police Service to design a computer software program that would support more effective, intelligence led, child exploitation investigations by enabling collaboration and information sharing across law enforcement agencies.

The Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS) is the result of this partnership which had two main objectives:

1. enhance the ability of police agencies to better protect children, and

2. create strategic technology and human resources efficiencies regarding child exploitation investigations.

Development of the System

It was recognized very early in the development of CETS that if it was going to be a useful tool, it must bring together experts from three areas:

• law enforcement (Paul Gillespie and his team)
• technical (Microsoft), and
• legal (David Butt).

They all work together in Toronto at the CETS Center of Excellence (CoE). After the original version of CETS was developed, and to ensure that CETS would be user-friendly and widely accepted, 100 investigators from all over the world were brought to Toronto to contribute to the further development of CETS. These officers were asked to make recommendations on what had been developed so that CETS could be the best software of its type in the world. Microsoft listened to these investigators, made the changes which were suggested and delivered a great solution.

Launch and Proliferation of the System

When CETS was officially launched in Toronto in April of 2005, it received tremendous media coverage around the world. (Check the Press Coverage section for highlights.) CETS is now being used by law enforcement agencies in 30 locations in Canada and CETS is already responsible for linking together numerous national and international investigations and rescuing children in several countries.

Paul Gillespie speaks at the Toronto launch of CETS

CETS is now being used in:

• Canada
• Indonesia
• Italy
• the United Kingdom
• Brazil …

  and is being developed in several other countries.

1st International CETS meeting held in Rome on June 1st, 2007 attended by representatives from Indonesia, Canada, the USA, the UK, Chile, Spain, Brazil, Romania, Belgium, and Interpol

Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos meets with Paul Gillespie in Bogota to discuss CETS.

CETS has been involved in the arrest of 64 offenders world-wide and more importantly in the identification and rescue of 43 previously unreported child victims of sexual abuse. Paul Gillespie and the rest of the Microsoft CETS team continue to travel around the globe demonstrating CETS and are planning several more deployments in the future in all corners of the world. CETS will become the first global child exploitation intelligence database used by law enforcement.

Take a look at photo highlights from the ongoing CETS world tour.