Google Turns to Big Data to Unmask Human Traffickers - Businessweek

A humanitarian big data application domain

"“Nine months ago, starting with the Google Ideas Summit, we set out to map, expose, and disrupt the workings of illicit networks,” says Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas. “This includes organized crime, narco-trafficking, organ harvesting. Every single one of these networks involved human trafficking.”
The alliance announced on Tuesday means the three anti-trafficking networks, which operate emergency hotlines in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, will share data on where the emergency phone calls are originating, the ages of the victims, their home countries, and the types of criminal activities they have been forced into. With the help of Salesforce.com, Palantir, and Google, the agencies will be able to crunch data like this in real time to detect crime trends that they can then share with police and policymakers to help protect victims."

Google Turns to Big Data to Unmask Human Traffickers - Businessweek