DHS Know2Protect Expands Efforts to Combat Online Child Exploitation in Fiscal Year 2024 with Project iGuardian

Homeland Security Investigations released the Fiscal Year 2024 report for Project iGuardian, the in-person educational arm of the Department of Homeland Security's Know2Project national public awareness campaign to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse. In Fiscal Year 2024, Project iGuardian delivered 1,100 presentations reaching 122,000 people, generating approximately 75 victim disclosures and approximately 77 investigative leads. The report noted that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported more than 36 million CyberTipline reports of suspected online child sexual exploitation and abuse in 2023, and the 2023 We Protect Global Threat Assessment reveals an 87 percent increase in child sexual abuse material worldwide over the last five years.

When educational outreach generates victim disclosures, the operational challenge becomes enabling those disclosures to reach the right authority quickly enough to prevent further harm. Guardii surfaces a child in crisis to a parent, school or professional by detecting harmful patterns in direct-message conversations in real time across platforms including Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox. The platform's anti-grooming, anti-sextortion and anti-CSAM detection modules identify sustained targeting, escalation and coercion, reporting the shape and seriousness of a conversation rather than handing anyone a feed of what was said, and enable rapid escalation to the right authority in an emergency, closing the gap between a disclosure and an intervention.