November 19, 2025
Authors
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Associate Director, Technology Sectors, 黑料正能量
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Manager, Human Rights, 黑料正能量
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Manager, Human Rights, 黑料正能量
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Global Lead, Human Trafficking and Forced Labor, 黑料正能量
Key Points
- 200 leaders from across the technology and anti-trafficking world discussed the ways in which innovative technology, increasingly driven by AI, can be a powerful enabler to fight modern slavery when responsibly and carefully designed and deployed.
- TAT announced the launch of the Lived Experience Consultation Group in partnership with Survivor Alliance—an initiative that will, for the first time, allow leading technology companies to directly engage survivor leaders and apply their insights to business practices.
- Participants called for global data standards on forced labor, a common language to address online trafficking, and stronger collaboration to scale proven anti-trafficking technologies.
The fourth annual (TAT) Summit brought together nearly 200 technologists, policymakers, business leaders, and survivor advocates at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington on November 4th and 5th.
The two-day hands-on summit demonstrated the growing momentum and maturity to harness technology to fight human trafficking—showing how far the field has come from simply building tools to embedding human rights considerations into the foundation of technology and governance.
This year’s Summit saw the participation of senior corporate leaders, including human rights leads from some of the world’s largest technology companies, and global policymakers and advocates such as The Rt Hon. the Baroness May of Maidenhead, former UK Prime Minister and longtime champion of anti-trafficking efforts.
Through three thematic tracks—Tech Innovation, Online Trafficking, and Supply Chain Data—participants explored how emerging technologies can combat modern slavery, while maintaining a focus on responsibility, survivor inclusion, and systemic change.
Responsible Innovation to Address Human Trafficking
A central theme of the Summit was responsible innovation—the idea that technology can be a powerful enabler in the fight against trafficking, but only when designed and deployed with care, ethics, and human oversight.
“We need to train AI with empathy and human dignity, rather than consumption and extraction. This is the responsibility of our generation.”
– Nasreen Sheikh, Founder, Empowerment Collective, and member of the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking
Human rights leads from TAT member companies shared concrete examples of how they are leveraging technology to detect trafficking risks, protect vulnerable populations, and strengthen due diligence systems. At the same time, they identified critical challenges, ranging from fragmented data and siloed efforts to privacy risks and algorithmic bias.
There was a consensus that technology can be both an enabler and a risk, underscoring the importance of context-specific design and survivor involvement at every stage. Panelists called for innovation that goes beyond detecting risks to preventing harm and improving real-world outcomes.
“We need the same ambition and scale of innovation in business and human rights as in other sectors. We’re already seeing what’s possible—from predictive analytics that help prevent risks in real time to tools that bring greater transparency to supply chains.”
– Leigh Anne DeWine, Director of Human Rights and Social Impact, Amazon
This year’s Anti-Trafficking Tech Tools Showcase further demonstrated this balance between innovation and responsibility. Six organizations—Allies Against Slavery, Pacific Links Foundation, Parasol Cooperative, SupplyTrace, Verité, and Winrock International—presented innovative solutions ranging from data-driven analytics platforms to survivor-centered design initiatives. Collectively, they highlighted how collaboration, compassion, and creativity are shaping the next generation of anti-trafficking technologies.
“Responsible innovation means centering the harms to people as the core to our work, particularly survivors. It’s a human-centered problem, in real time, in real life. It involves balancing rights.”
– Miranda Sissons, Director of Human Rights Policy, Meta
Centering Lived Experience
A defining feature of this year’s Summit was deep and structured engagement with survivors of modern slavery. TAT announced the launch of the Lived Experience Consultation Group in partnership with Survivor Alliance—an initiative that will allow companies to directly engage survivor leaders and apply their insights to business practices.
Speakers repeatedly emphasized the importance of listening to those with lived experience and emphasized the critical role of organizations leading anti-trafficking efforts on the ground. Representatives from a range of organizations—from global corporations like Marriott International to social enterprises such as AnnieCannons—shared examples of how organizations can provide safe and sustainable employment opportunities for survivors, which ultimately benefit businesses.
“Companies need to understand that employing survivors is not only good for the betterment of survivors but also for the betterment of their business.”
– Alicia Ley, Co-Executive Director, Survivor Alliance
Setting Standards to Scale Solutions
A consistent message throughout the Summit was the need for global standards and interoperability as the foundation for scaling effective solutions across sectors and regions. By building shared language, consistent frameworks, and collaborative mechanisms, the anti-trafficking community can transform isolated innovations into lasting, systemic impact.
Experts emphasized the importance of aligning on data standards for supply chain risk detection, establishing a common typology and terminology to describe online harm, as well as agreeing on a globally recognized definition of human trafficking and modern slavery. Alignment among governments on policies and regulations is equally critical, as inconsistent approaches make it difficult for companies to act confidently and effectively.
“The who-what-where questions of supply chain transparency (i.e., who made it, what was made, and where it came from) is essential to building traceability and accountability at scale.”
– Jodi Larson, Vice President of Supply Chain Product Management, Microsoft
From Insights to Implementation
The Summit closed with a reminder that with innovation no longer a barrier to progress, the opportunity to achieve wider impact now requires increased coordination and common frameworks. There was a call for targeted investments, to enable the implementation and scaling of solutions across global supply chains, geographies, and platforms where modern slavery is prevalent.
In her keynote speech, Baroness Theresa May emphasized the critical role of business in driving change and called on companies to leverage their commercial power to advocate for systemic improvements, and to engage directly with governments to strengthen anti-trafficking mechanisms and public justice systems.
Combating human trafficking requires the entire ecosystem: tech companies, policymakers, survivor advocates, and consumers to act in concert. Tech Against Trafficking will continue to build on these insights through its workstreams, advancing survivor-centered innovation, developing responsible technology frameworks, and supporting standard-setting to scale solutions.
Each summit track produced tangible outcomes and clear next steps, including:
Tech Innovation: Participants engaged directly with new technology tools and valued the open-source , developed by Microsoft as part of the TAT Accelerator Program, recognizing that AI-powered workflows can greatly benefit anti-trafficking NGOs, though they remain difficult to access. Next steps include follow-up meetings with interested organizations and disseminating the to broaden knowledge sharing.
Online Trafficking: Discussions explored a range of potential industry resources to advance collective efforts against online trafficking. Participants created a draft typology of online trafficking, outlining platform risk factors, signals, and interventions, with plans to finalize and publish it in 2026.
Supply Chain Data: The group made progress on creating an open-ended forced labor data standard, which will include a library of datasets aligned with ILO indicators, as well as novel approaches to forced labor detection and guidance for intervention. Furthermore, TAT presented its draft Supply Chain Traceability Standard for AI Providers for the first time and gathered input on its adoption by supply chain actors. Next steps include designing and validating the TAT Forced Labor Data Standard through multi-stakeholder engagement in 2026, and publishing a draft TAT Supply Chain Traceability Standard following stakeholder consultations.
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