About This Workshop
This two-day workshop provides a practical, hands-on training track for law enforcement officers, crimes against children investigators, digital forensic examiners, analysts, prosecutors, and DFRWS USA attendees who support investigations involving technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse, human trafficking, and victim identification.
Led by Project VIC International, in collaboration with presenters and contributors from MSAB, Magnet Griffeye, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Fox Valley ICACCOPS, Rigr AI, Kindred Tech, and the Global Emancipation Network, the workshop brings together leading practitioners, tool providers, technologists, and investigators working to improve outcomes in crimes against children investigations.
The workshop is organized across two days. The detailed Agenda can be found on the Project Vic website here: https://www.projectvic.org/training
Day 1 focuses on hands-on training with leading digital forensics tools used in crimes against children investigations. Participants will work through practical workflows for imaging, verification, triage, review, analysis, reporting, and investigative decision-making. The day emphasizes how investigators can use commercial forensic platforms, Project VIC resources, hash-based intelligence, and structured workflows to reduce unnecessary exposure to child sexual abuse material while accelerating the identification of high-value evidence and investigative leads.
Day 2 focuses on free and low-cost tools, victim identification tradecraft, rescuing children from trafficking, and an introduction to ICACCOPS. Participants will explore practical investigative methods for developing leads, documenting online activity, supporting victim-centric prioritization, and connecting digital evidence to broader investigative objectives. The day is designed to help investigators expand their capabilities even when agency budgets, staffing, or tool access are limited.
Across the workshop, participants will also be introduced to open standards and interoperability efforts relevant to crimes against children investigations, including CASE/UCO, the Crimes Against Children Ontology, and related data-modeling approaches that support cross-tool analysis, provenance, repeatability, and inter-agency collaboration.
Hands-on labs use synthetic, legally permissible datasets and prebuilt training environments. No child exploitation material is used in this workshop.
Throughout the training, instructors will emphasize necessity, proportionality, data minimization, auditability, investigator wellness, and clear deference to each attendee’s applicable laws, agency policies, and standard operating procedures. The goal is to provide practical, affordable, mission-focused training that helps investigators better use technology to identify victims, rescue children, support prosecutions, and strengthen collaboration across the child protection community.
Only in-person participants will be able to perform the hands-on training. Virtual participants will be able to watch each trainer’s presentation.