In many child exploitation cases, the hardest part is not locating one file that matters. It is sorting through thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of images, videos, chats, devices, and tips to figure out what actually matters first.
That reality has been front and center for our team lately. We have been working closely with investigators who handle these cases, and one thing becomes obvious fast. These investigators do not just find evidence. They wade through a staggering amount of awful material to identify victims, connect offenders, document what happened, and build cases that will hold up in court.
There is no tidy way to say it. A lot of this work is repetitive, emotionally draining, and hard to explain to people who have never seen it up close. It also does not get enough credit.
A lighthearted truth from the last couple of months, if there is such a thing here, is that I have officially seen more nudity than I ever planned to, and no, it is not because I suddenly became very sophisticated and took a long vacation to Europe. It is because when you spend time around this workflow, you realize just how much useless, duplicate, and non-probative material stands between an investigator and the facts that actually move a case forward.
And that is exactly why this problem is worth talking about in practical terms.
The case is not just the evidence, it is the sorting
Popular depictions of digital investigations make it seem like the key file appears, someone points at the screen, and the case is solved before the coffee gets cold. Real life is messier. A single investigation may involve cloud accounts, phones, hard drives, social media records, app data, chat logs, screenshots, hash matches, duplicates, near-duplicates, and a long list of items that turn out to be irrelevant.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported more than 36 million CyberTipline reports in 2023. Those reports contained over 105 million files, including images, videos, and other files. That number alone tells the story. The volume is enormous. Every report is not a full criminal case, and every file is not new evidence, but all of it has to be sorted, reviewed, triaged, and documented by someone.
That someone is often an investigator or analyst who is already balancing a full caseload.
There is also a common misconception that technology has already solved the hard part. Hash matching helps. Automated detection helps. Triage tools help. But even when a system flags likely known child sexual abuse material, investigators still need to establish context, identify whether there are contact offenses, determine whether a child is in immediate danger, document possession or distribution, and preserve a clear chain of evidence for prosecution.
That means a huge share of the workload is not the dramatic part. It is categorizing. De-duplicating. Prioritizing. Cross-referencing chats to media. Figuring out which suspect used which account on which date. Noting what was viewed, shared, or produced. Then packaging all of that into reports prosecutors can use.
None of that is glamorous. All of it matters.
The human cost is real, and agencies feel it
It is easy to talk about efficiency like it is a spreadsheet problem. In this corner of law enforcement, it is also a human problem. Repeated exposure to child sexual abuse material can take a real toll on investigators, analysts, forensic examiners, and prosecutors. Research across internet crimes against children and digital forensic roles has consistently pointed to increased stress, sleep disruption, intrusive thoughts, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress among professionals who review this material regularly.
That is not surprising. What is surprising is how often the workload still gets framed as if the burden is just part of the job and there is not much to be done about it.
There is plenty to be done about it.
If a skilled investigator is spending hours manually separating duplicate files, tagging obvious categories, piecing together timeline fragments from different systems, or reviewing large batches of material that could have been triaged more intelligently, that is not some noble rite of passage. It is friction. Necessary in parts, yes. But still friction.
And friction adds up. It slows case progress. It delays victim identification. It creates backlogs. It pulls experienced people away from interviews, warrants, interagency coordination, and the deeper investigative thinking that actually breaks a case open.
This is the part that deserves more attention. The challenge is not simply that these cases are hard. It is that agencies often ask talented people to spend too much of their limited time on tasks that machines are better suited to assist with.
Notice the word assist. Not replace. No serious investigator wants an algorithm making charging decisions or inventing context where none exists. But there is a big difference between replacing judgment and reducing grunt work.
If software can group similar files, surface likely priority evidence, connect related records, flag probable duplicates, organize timelines, and make review more structured, that gives investigators something valuable back. Time. Focus. A little less exposure. A little more room to investigate instead of sort.
That is not science fiction. It is a practical design goal.
What better support actually looks like
When people hear AI, they sometimes picture a magical black box that solves a case with one click. That is not useful, and it is not how real agencies work. In this setting, useful tools do simpler things well.
They help teams intake information without losing key details. They help organize media, reports, and supporting records in one place. They make it easier to spot links across cases. They reduce duplicate effort. They support cleaner documentation. They help supervisors understand workload and bottlenecks. They create a more consistent process for triage and review.
Most important, they should fit the way investigations are actually run.
A detective may need to move from a CyberTipline report to device evidence, then to suspect interviews, then to search warrant returns, then back to media review. A prosecutor may need a concise timeline and clear exhibits. A supervisor may need to know where a backlog is forming. A task force may need a shared view across agencies without turning every handoff into a scavenger hunt. Good systems support those realities.
That is a big reason we are building ShieldView. Not because software is somehow the hero of these cases. It is not. Investigators, analysts, victim advocates, prosecutors, and partner agencies do the hard part. But if software can take on more of the endless sorting and busywork, the people doing that hard part can spend more time on the work only people can do.
And yes, maybe a little less time staring at humanity at its absolute worst.
There is room for a little humor in saying that out loud, because otherwise the topic becomes too heavy to talk about honestly. But the point underneath it is serious. We should stop treating administrative drag and content review overload like unavoidable background noise. In many cases, they are operational problems that can be reduced with better systems, better workflows, and better support for the people carrying the burden.
One practical takeaway for agency leaders is this. Look closely at where your investigators spend their time in child exploitation cases. Not just by case count, but by task. How much time goes to media sorting, duplicate review, report assembly, handoffs, and cross-case comparison? Where are people doing repetitive work by hand? Where are they reopening the same information in three different places? Those are not minor annoyances. They are opportunities to reduce delay and strain.
If we want better outcomes in these cases, we should respect the work enough to improve the workflow around it. That means giving investigators credit for the ugly, painstaking review they already do. It also means building tools that let them do less sorting and more investigating. That is a trade worth making, every time.
Less sorting. More investigating.
ShieldView helps ICAC and SVU teams triage evidence faster and stay organized across every case — while protecting the investigators who carry the burden.