PASCO COUNTY, Fla. – The Human Trafficking Foundation and AINA (I-NA) Technologies are pleased to announce the launch of Mission BlitzTip in Pasco County.
BlitzTip is a community-led data sharing and mapping platform to protect, prevent and prepare against human trafficking.
Aina partnered with the Human Trafficking Foundation to turn existing local knowledge into the data Aina’s BlitzTip technology needed to create actionable information. BlitzTip identifies routes favored by traffickers to deliver victims to customers and assesses business vulnerability using key indicators.
As Kimberly Adams, CEO Aina Technologies explains, “Traffickers and their victims will and do come out of the shadows to purchase everyday items such as gas, a meal, a haircut. This quick stop makes businesses vulnerable. BlitzTip flips it, turning vulnerability into exposure moments. These moments equal detection and rescue.”
Focusing on observation and reporting, certified business owners, managers and employees are trained, tested and onboarded onto BlitzTip’s highly specialized human trafficking detection technology. Blitztip reporters deliver actionable intelligence directly to the law enforcement agent responsible for immediate action.
“By promoting businesses as certified observers and reporters, we are herding traffickers, victims and customers where law enforcement and responders want them: the locations where traffickers can’t hide and victims can be rescued,” explains Adams
“The Pasco Sheriff’s Office is proud of our continuing efforts and partnerships to end the scourge of human trafficking in our community,” said Pasco County Sheriff, Chris Nocco.
Alan Wilkett, Chairman of The Human Trafficking Foundation and former Corporal with the Pasco Sheriff’s Office emphatically explains, “detection, the critical initial step, is made most effective with awareness, education AND fast, accurate, and relevant timely tips to the proper authorities.
Ending Human Trafficking requires a whole community approach that focuses on detection, disruption, and dismantling. Mission BlitzTip is the multi-stakeholder, community action, law enforcement, responders and human trafficking activists have been waiting for.”
Accepting the mission, the support of Florida’s Sport Coast, Pasco EDC, Digital Light Bridge, Pasco County Commission on Human Trafficking, and the Florida Alliance to End Human Trafficking, and the Pasco Sheriff’s Office will help Pasco County flip the script on human trafficking.