BILLINGS — Montana has a new weapon in the fight against human trafficking: a free app called Simply Report that allows residents to submit tips about suspected cases directly to state officials.
Human-trafficking cases in Montana have been on the rise. Britney Higgs, founder of HER Campaign, said improved identification is part of the reason — but so is an increase in criminal activity.
Watch Attorney General Austin Knudsen talk about Simply Report:
"I think we're getting better at identification of victims and identification of trafficking happening in our state. So that's part of the reason why we're seeing a rise. But we do see that there is a rise in the criminal activity that is happening in Montana across the board," Higgs said Tuesday.
Higgs believes Simply Report could be transformative.
"Simply Report is going to be an app that, I think, that is going to transform the way that we identify and report trafficking in Montana. I'm really excited about it, and I'm thankful we have it here," Higgs said.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said his office has been aggressively targeting human trafficking for nearly six years.
"We've really been aggressive on human trafficking for the last five, going on six years now. We've filled a lot of holes that were not being filled," Knudsen said.
One of those holes was slow response times from national hotlines — sometimes taking days or even weeks to act on tips.
"Sometimes it's hours. Sometimes we found it is days with the national hotline. I mean, sometimes it was multiple days, sometimes weeks. And that's just not acceptable," Knudsen said.
Simply Report uses AI to help prioritize incoming tips and speed up response times.
"(Simply Report) is not gonna be completely reliant on AI, but it is gonna utilize some of it for some functions. For instance, some of the prioritization as they come in. Is this a more of an emergency situation? Do we need to dispatch it right to the top and get it to local law enforcement quickly? Or is this something that's more appropriate to be sent to our task force here in Helena or in Billings, whatever the case may be? That's probably what the AI portion is gonna look like," Knudsen said.
In 2025, state Department of Justice agents worked on 64 human trafficking-related cases. Knudsen said the goal is to bring that number down through better training and tools.
"I think we are doing a lot better job training law enforcement, training county attorneys and prosecutors on how to actually handle these cases," Knudsen said.
For Higgs, Simply Report is about more than efficiency — it's about saving lives.
"Going to help us really streamline the effort of first and foremost reporting to law enforcement when human trafficking could be happening and then having a better pathway for victims to find the services that they are needing," Higgs said.
