| Sumario: | People worldwide have benefited from globalized communication networks made possible by advancements in social media and the internet. Although many use these online resources innocently, both domestic and international experts have noted that criminals are exploiting social media and the internet. Traffickers have begun using these tools to recruit and sell trafficked people. Understanding how social media and the internet are involved in human trafficking is necessary to establish policies that curb their misuse and identify trafficking-related activity online. Most existing human-trafficking data sources estimate the prevalence of human trafficking using victim reports of exploitative activities. But estimating human-trafficking prevalence is difficult due to prosecutions often reclassifying charges, persistent underreporting, and a lack of a uniformly accepted definition of human trafficking across jurisdictions. This article introduces a novel dataset that numerically categorizes human-trafficking prosecution cases by their use of technology, rather than focusing on prevalence estimation. The Social Media and the Internet in Trafficking of Humans Data Project (SMITH) illustrates how traffickers incorporate technology into the recruitment and sale of persons and goods, and law enforcement applications in investigations. The SMITH dataset is a critical new tool for research and policy initiatives to combat modern trafficking.
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