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Ensuring that we remain at the forefront of the technology and industry developments that impact child sexual exploitation facilitated online is essential to the success of our mission. Our ability to support our collaborative network of partners in their fight to protect children is influenced significantly by the experts who generously share their knowledge and time to help steer our organisation into the future.
We are delighted to announce that we have appointed one of these industry experts, Colm Gannon, as a non-executive director to the ICMEC Australia board. Colm brings extensive experience in digital safety, cybercrime investigations and software development, combined with over 20 years in law enforcement, to his position on our board.
During his time in law enforcement, which began in his homeland of Ireland, Colm was involved in national and international investigations and prosecutions relating to online harms, child sexual abuse and exploitation, violent extremism, and harmful online communications. He is now a Product Manager with Irish-based organisation, Rigr AI. In this role Colm is responsible for policy development, including child protection, privacy impact assessment and, legal and ethical assessments for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning implementations.
Colm’s commitment to protecting children from abuse has seen him represent the New Zealand government as a subject matter expert before the United Nations Committee for the Rights of Children, in addition to training law enforcement, prosecutors and judges on combatting OSEC on behalf of Europol.
Colm’s list of achievements seems endless, and we already experienced the value he brings to our organisation when he presented on the subject of AI at the June Monthly Brown Bag event, our most popular so far.
With the break-neck speed that Al and machine learning is advancing and proliferating our online world, we are acutely aware that it is essential to keep a firm eye on advancements in this space.
Colm’s expertise and involvement in key development projects in AI and machine learning will provide a window into what might be on the horizon for OSEC. And it will ensure that we keep pace with the additional impacts that these advancements will have on our ability to help organisations detect, report, prosecute and prevent child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Céad míle fáilte Colm.
ICMEC Australia acknowledges Traditional Owners throughout Australia and their continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and Elders past and present.
