In Part 1 of this exclusive two-part interview, Kelly Inabnett, a law enforcement veteran and solutions engineer with Veritone, discusses his experiences as a sex crimes and human trafficking investigator. This Part 2 examines how Veritone’s iDEMS can help speed investigations into child sexual abuse materials and sex crimes while reducing investigators’ vicarious trauma.
Register and watch the On-Demand replay of the June 5th, 2025 Webinar in which Inabnett [and others] discuss how AI can accelerate investigations into sex crimes and human trafficking, increase case clearance rates and help bring closure and justice to victims.
Police1: How has AI helped the efficiency of digital evidence review and analysis?
Kelly Inabnett: AI is able to determine, for instance, if we’re looking for CSAM, you want to look for a person – you’re not looking for a picture of a tree. The AI is able to go through and determine which pictures have a person in them. If you have a case where you know that your victim is always wearing a certain piece of jewelry, you’re able to use the AI to search those photographs for that jewelry.
Or, if you want to prove a person has been stalking someone on Instagram, the only way to really show that is maybe if they have a bunch of screenshots on their phone. The AI is able to search for that text recognition in that photograph. If you have your victims, we’ll call it their Instagram handle or Facebook name.
So just being able to search the photographs for the pertinent information that you need is a huge thing instead of relying on the human eye to go through the thumbnail photographs that are super tiny. Even if you have to go through all of them in full-screen mode, it’s just one after another.
AI is able to do the heavy lifting for it and be like, “Hey, these are 200 photos down from the 100,000 that you need to look at and pay attention to,” and verify within those what’s important to your case.
HOW VERITONE IDEMS HELPS SOLVE SEX CRIMES
Veritone has a tool called Veritone iDEMS that can help solve these crimes. How does that work?
Inabnett: iDEMS is basically an investigative suite. It has the AI that goes through and processes all your audio and visual evidence that you bring in and, in doing so – depending on what we’re looking for – can run different engines on that to figure out what you’re looking for.
For instance, if you’re looking through a bunch of photographs, you don’t really need a transcription on that, so you don’t need to run that engine on it. But a big thing about it is being able to search all of a cell phone’s download. You can upload an entire cell phone download into that instead of waiting for it to load on your computer, possibly crashing your computer or not being able to make it through the entire cell phone in a day, and then you have to come back after the weekend. And all this time AI just keeps going. All of these [AI engines] work where the AI can point you in the right direction and allow you to review the evidence that’s more relevant to your case instead of looking at 3,000 photographs of your suspect’s cat.
You talked earlier about gaining the trust of victims. How important is it then for Veritone iDEMS and other Veritone products to ensure data privacy and security?
Inabnett: It’s insanely important.
Digital cell phones have some people’s most personal, private things in them. And you’re going through them and so in and of itself it’s a huge invasion of privacy. When you’re going through this, we make sure that only the people who are supposed to have access have access to that evidence.
If it’s an agency working with Veritone, only that agency or that detective has access to that. It can be set more securely so that a particular user can have access to that, but we don’t want that evidence to get out in the world. It’s already really bad out there, so we make sure that all the evidence is contained and there’s not a risk of it being exposed to the public. It’s the same as if an agency were storing evidence in its evidence locker.
Can you give me an example of how Veritone iDEMS helped solve a case?
Inabnett: Take for instance a Snapchat sextortion case where you have a victim who makes a report. She sent some illicit photos that she felt that she had to because this person had threatened her. But we don’t know who this person is.
After we’re going through the evidence, you end up having gigabytes upon gigabytes of CSAM that this person’s been sextorting from multiple people. But then you have this evidence, right? And in this case, it’s a little easier because the majority of the information, if you get it from this person’s private iCloud, the majority of it would probably be CSAM. But what you want to do is locate your victim so that you can help provide that case closure and seal that up and show that you have jurisdiction within it.
So instead of a detective having to go through thousands of photos of known CSAM – which is horrible – I could search for Jane Doe’s face within there and pull up those photos of Jane Doe immediately and then not have to go through and sift through everything else. Just the time it would save, the trauma it would save being able to look at it at the right time of day.
You start to compartmentalize things, but you don’t really realize the toll it’s taking on you until later on. So anything you can do to alleviate that, anything you can do to help make it so you’re not spending hours looking at it but looking at it for minutes or only looking at it when you can look at it and be safe.
So what does it mean to you personally when you resolve a case?
Inabnett: Every case comes with its own unique reward.
The unfortunate thing is that sometimes going through the trial can be just as traumatic for the victim as the actual offense. The offender has a right to face their accuser.
It’s not usually a stranger. More often than not, it’s a family friend or a family member who’s doing this, and then they [the victim] have to go up and testify and recount what happened in front of a judge, a jury and in front of the offender. And not just recount it, but after they’re asked questions by the defense.
The defense is entitled to a cross-examination where they then try and tear down that witness or that victim’s statement to prove them not credible or to find holes in it. It’s tough to watch.
There’s some laws to protect certain ages of kids, but any kid under 18 who has to testify – or even an adult who might have to testify against a known offender – it’s not an easy thing to do.
It’s not an easy thing to watch and that’s why they have the victim advocates out there. It’s why they have facility dogs to help them get through that. And that’s why you build that relationship with the victim when they go through the case because you are there with them. You provide that protection and that trust with them through the case so they’re not just on their own.
Where do you see the future of AI in CSAM, sexual assault and human trafficking cases? What’s it going to look like five or 10 years from now?
Inabnett: I think that instead of searching just like specifically for a person or a body, the AI is going to be able to determine what is CSAM or potentially CSAM. It’s basically giving you suggestions of like, “Hey, here is stuff that we think might be bad,” and you’re going in and confirming whether it is or isn’t.
Another advance will be programming it to look specifically at certain terminology used in CSAM and human trafficking that the public’s not aware of. You can have AI search it for you and then be able to move on to the next steps of the investigation.
One of Veritone’s sayings is “AI for Good.” What does that mean to you and how do you see Veritone making good on that promise?
Inabnett: Veritone is helping the cases get solved that would kind of sit in the background. Veritone is able to accelerate the process and make it so that you’re able to review more and get those cases looked at.
It also allows those officers to be able to get through these cases because it’s not just bringing resolution to those victims – there’s a lot of burnout, too. You can go solve a great case and save that victim, but you’re not always going to get your Cinderella ending. You’re not going to get a break either. You’re going to get that case filed and you’re going to come back the next day and you’re going to have another big case with another victim who’s been through the worst experience of their life.
I think AI is going to be that next big step of, “we’re going to find that evidence that’s going to close that case that you weren’t able to go through,” because the reality is that people get burned out. I can’t sit there and stare at 24 hours of security footage and not take a break and not have to go to the bathroom and not get called in by my sergeant. And you can’t look through it at a faster speed because you might miss it.
AI doesn’t get soft. It doesn’t get tired. You just have to plug it in and it’ll stay awake.
So is there anything that the Police1 audience needs to know about Veritone solutions and how they can help?
Veritone solutions are there to help you. The more we are able to learn and collaborate with the law enforcement audience, the better we can make the system. The more people that use it, the more feedback that we get, the more that we can build things out. They’re using my experience to help build up the system and how I would’ve used it, how I would’ve brought that into how I would work, my expertise, and then being able to apply that across the board.
To be an officer out there takes a toll on you and we want to make it so the job can move as efficiently as possible. And so you can clear your crimes, you can solve the cases and then get back to your family where you’re needed.
Note: The above conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
