Should business help to tackle broader societal issues?

Some six years ago BAE Systems recognised that our cyber security expertise could help the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) protect vulnerable children from exploitation. As such, we have been providing pro-bono support to CEOP since November 2008, acknowledging the cutting edge role the organisation is playing in tackling this crime. The CEOP approach is seen as best practice across the world.

We designed analytical tools for profiling suspects, reconstituting conversations and identifying risk factors which were used as part of ‘Operation RESCUE’, an international investigation led by CEOP, which in 2011 uncovered the world’s largest paedophile ring. Our work on Operation RESCUE helped to safeguard 60 children and supported the arrest of 121 offenders in the UK.

By working closely with CEOP’s officers, we came to understand the organisation and the challenges it faces in keeping up with developments in technology and offenders ability to exploit that technology for their own means. When this is combined with our expertise in advanced data analysis, which spans the intelligence, law enforcement and telecommunications space, we can provide valuable support to improve the speed in which CEOP can detect and investigate these horrendous crimes against children.

Our work helps CEOP:

To save time on tasks that would normally take several weeks of continuous effort by CEOP’s investigators to complete but which can now be done in minutes. This enables CEOP’s investigators to focus their efforts on their front line child protection work

To improve CEOP’s ability to identify individuals, trends and new leads, ensuring more offenders can be identified and arrested

To help CEOP remain a national centre of excellence for safeguarding children from online child exploitation, enabling CEOP to disseminate best practice to local polices forces in the UK and international law enforcement agencies

“Our Strategic Partnership with BAE Systems has transformed the speed in which we can identify and safeguard children and locate and arrest offenders. Their expertise in data analysis, combined with their corporate commitment to our mission, has made a vital difference to our work and, most importantly, the lives of children. Anything we can do to speed up the time it takes us to identify a child who’s being abused is worthwhile. Each day makes a difference in these children’s lives and our work with BAE Systems has ensured that a number of children who were suffering abuse were located more quickly than would have otherwise been possible on our own. The scale and success of Operation Rescue broke new ground and BAE Systems played an invaluable part in this.”

Peter Davies, the Chief Executive of CEOP and the Association of Chief Police Officer’s Lead for Child Protection and Abuse Investigation