Frequently Asked Questions

What is Kinsa?
What kind of training does Kinsa deliver?
Why does Kinsa need to train police officers?
What specific expertise does Kinsa have that makes this training effective?
Is the Kinsa law enforcement training making a difference?
What else does Kinsa do to help the public and the police fight online child exploitation?
Why should you Donate?

What is Kinsa?

Kinsa, a registered Canadian charity founded in 2004, helps to protect, rescue and heal child victims of abuse whose images are shared on the Internet. These are children in our neighbourhoods, across the country, and around the world.

Kinsa works with Canadian law enforcement agencies and other partners to train police officers in developing countries, giving them the expertise to find and rescue these vulnerable, unidentified children. The rescue of 10 Canadian children and the arrest of a New Brunswick man, is directly attributable to the global teamwork Kinsa fosters. Kinsa training works.

Once rescued, victims and their families receive support to help them heal through the Mothers Online Movement (MOM), a powerful community network.

Back to Top

What kind of training does Kinsa deliver?

Using the latest cutting edge technology, Kinsa training gives investigators from around the world the tools to track down the sexual predators who are sharing images of children on the Internet. Sometimes those images offer investigators clues about who these children are and where these images are being taken. Think CSI: Powerful computer programs take a small piece of the puzzle, comparing it to other images in a database in Toronto. Maybe another clue or two emerges. But because we are able to help investigators across the globe work together, the clues gathered in Toronto are matched with information from other databases across the globe.

With a combination of computer technology and some good old-fashioned investigative ingenuity, those clues come together and the good guys are able to pinpoint where a child is being abused.

We train police officers from around the world. They go home, part of a global team to help protect, rescue and heal child victims of sexual abuse.

Back to Top

Why does Kinsa need to train police officers?

The need for police investigators with expertise in online child exploitation is growing rapidly worldwide. However, all police services operate with limited budgets, and they often limit training programs to keep front line officers on the streets. Kinsa helps developing nations meet the growing need for Internet child exploitation investigators by providing world class training that these countries would otherwise not have access to.

Back to Top

What specific expertise does Kinsa have that makes this training effective?

CEO Paul Gillespie and Legal Director David Butt have decades of experience investigating and prosecuting online child exploitation offences, and consulting worldwide.

Back to Top

Kinsa has close working relationships with many of the world’s leading experts in online child exploitation.
Kinsa has close working relationships with some of the most highly trained police services working in this area, including the RCMP, the OPP, the Toronto Police Service and the Virtual Global Task Force.
Kinsa has close working relationships with leading private sector technology companies.

Is the Kinsa law enforcement training making a difference?

Yes. In 2008 officers from the Toronto Police Service and the Maine State Police led an 18-month investigation regarding a series of images of abuse posted on the Internet. The investigators believed that the pictures were taken near the border between New Brunswick and Maine. Members of the Interpol Specialist Group on Crimes Against Children were also involved, scouring their own countries’ image databases for previously undiscovered pictures in this series. None were found and the investigation stalled.

In May of 2008, a team of investigators and computer forensic analysts from the Brazilian Federal Police came to Canada for Kinsa training. During training, the officers were made aware of this case and invited to join the Interpol Group. One of the computer analysts did so, and by using his extensive experience and the Brazilian image database, he found many pictures in this series of abuse, which had never been seen by the Interpol Group before. One of the pictures he found was the missing piece of the puzzle. It gave the RCMP enough information to identify and arrest a suspect in New Brunswick. So far, he’s been charged with offences involving 10 child victims. He is suspected of abusing many more.

Back to Top

What else does Kinsa do to help the public and the police fight online child exploitation?

Too often, the best and brightest investigative minds have to work on their own. Almost in a vacuum. A police officer in Toronto could be trying to identify the child in an image of abuse on the Internet, while at the same time, an officer in Johannesburg is on the trail of a suspected pedophile. Neither knows what the other is doing. Neither knows they’re working on the same case.

Kinsa is dedicated to bridging that gap.

We are a non-governmental organization. We’re not constrained by jurisdictional boundaries. Our goal is to help law enforcement agencies share information. We want the good guys to have the tools to be able to track down the bad guys.

Kinsa also helps to bring together professionals from the public and private sectors – including policing, technology, health care and policy development – so they can share their ideas and find the best ways to fight online child exploitation. These gatherings produce “white papers” that could help our politicians develop stronger laws to protect our kids.

Back to Top

Why should you donate?

To help the 49,000 unidentified children - victims of sexual abuse whose images are shared on the Internet.

These are children in our neighbourhoods, across the country, and around the world. So far 1,700 children have been found and rescued. By supporting Kinsa’s initiatives you’re joining the fight to help find, rescue and heal these most vulnerable victims - our children!

Back to Top