The Australian Federal Police (AFP) in collaboration with Monash University is spearheading a groundbreaking initiative named My Pictures Matter aiming to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the rapid detection and identification of child sexual abuse material.
The initiative marks a first-of-its-kind nationwide call to action and AFP's Deputy Commissioner Lesa Gale has emphasised the dire need for public participation.
"By having access to ordinary, everyday photographs, the AI tool will be trained to look for what is different and identify unsafe situations," said Gale.
To ensure ethical compliance, adults are asked to provide pictures of themselves in their youth rather than images of their children.
Gale indicated that for maximum efficacy of the crowd-sourcing project, approximately 100,000 pictures of Australians aged between 0-17 were needed
The AI tool aims to revolutionise the investigation process by automating the detection of child abuse material, which investigators usually manually comb through in large numbers.
The AFP and @MonashUni are calling for Australians to provide photographs of themselves to support a much-needed initiative to help save children from child abuse and help bring their perpetrators to justice. Submit your images here and learn more at https://t.co/KltEnnXu8N. pic.twitter.com/ozLe2gocYM— AFP (@AusFedPolice) September 6, 2023
What about ethics?
Dr Nina Lewis, My Pictures Matter Project head and AiLECS Lab Stream lead for Ethics, mentioned, "Consent isn't just saying 'yes,' it means understanding what you’re agreeing to."
She reassured that the dataset is securely held by Monash University and subjected to stringent transparency measures.
What’s more
The AI technology's capabilities extend to scanning material seized during criminal investigations and targeting websites already suspected of containing such abusive material.
The project aligns with the National Child Protection Week, running from September 3-9, and follows reports of more than 40,000 incidents of online child exploitation received by the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation in the past fiscal year.