Information communications technology plays a significant role in how trafficking takes place, and how it is confronted. Traffickers use social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and others to recruit victims into various forms of exploitation and to buy and sell people online, even in conflict-affected areas (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2018). Posing as a different person online is often the first step for human traffickers. With today’s technology, children from all walks of life are vulnerable to people who pose online as friendly teenagers, luring them into a conversation, and eventually meeting them in person. 

The use of social media by traffickers raises important questions. What can and should private sector actors do to prevent the technology they provide from being used by criminals, including traffickers? What can and should they do to support State actors trying to prevent trafficking? It also points to the need for States actors, international organizations and non-governmental authorities to us the same technologies to combat trafficking.  

Social media as a means of trafficking – and a weapon against it 

Traffickers have used social media platforms to recruit victims into sexual and non-sexual forms of labour exploitation. These platforms can also be used to control victims: for instance, threatening to share compromising images, or monitoring their movements during and even after they have left their trafficking situation. Social media is also used to exploit victims, by advertising victims and connecting them with illicit marketplaces, or by livestreaming exploitation and abuse. 

But increasingly, anti-trafficking actors are using social media to reach out to potential victims. Social media is used to send messages to counter the narratives of recruiters, to offer support to victims trying to escape from their situations, and to provide access to support, afterwards. Victims are also harnessing social media to build their own networks of survivors: sharing their stories to prevent the same fate befalling others and building communities of support. Anti-trafficking stakeholders must continue to explore opportunities to use these technologies in identification, prevention, prosecution and protection, while also considering the legal and ethical issues. For more information, see: The Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons, 2019.   

As fast as the trafficking landscape changes, the counter-trafficking landscape changes, too. Many new interventions are the result of technological advances. Social media are being used to counter the messages of online recruiters. Smartphone apps are being developed to raise awareness and to equip members of the public to quickly identify and notify authorities of instances of suspected trafficking. Even artificial intelligence (AI) is being used, for instance, to automate some law enforcement and border management functions traditionally performed by humans. 

Technology is also significantly and rapidly changing how we study and analyse trafficking. For example, to collect data on human trafficking cases. Another example uses blockchain technology, originally conceived for crypto-currencies. Now is being harnessed in counter-trafficking, for instance, to strengthen supply chain transparency, including via apps to monitor working conditions and identify exploited workers. And yet another example can be seen in the field of “big data”, where huge volumes and varieties of data are being gathered and analysed to reveal patterns of human mobility or even specific instances of trafficking (NEXUS, 2019).  

These technologies clearly offer new opportunities to strengthen the response to trafficking. At the same time, their use raises questions about how to interpret the data yielded, and how to protect privacy and confidentiality when using and sharing that data (NEXUS, 2019). These rapidly evolving technologies, as well as those used to help manage migration, have significant human implications, including on potential victims of trafficking. The ethical and legal principles and frameworks that we have been using may need to be adapted and modified to ensure that human rights are properly protected.  See more information on Trafficking in persons, data collection and data protection in its dedicated handbook chapter.