CAC Ontology
An international standard supporting automated combination, validation, and analysis of crimes against children investigation information
Express & Exchange
The Crimes Against Children (CAC) Ontology Family is a community-developed evolving standard that provides a structured (ontology-based) specification for representing information commonly analyzed and exchanged by people and systems during investigations involving digital evidence related to crimes against children.
The power of CAC Ontology is that it provides a common language to support automated normalization, combination and validation of varied information sources to facilitate analysis and exploration of investigative questions (who, when, how long, where). In addition to representing tool results, CAC Ontology ensures that analysis results can be traced back to their source(s), keeping track of when, where and who used which tools to perform investigative actions on data sources.
CAC Ontology extends the Unified Cyber Ontology (UCO) and the Cyber-investigation Analysis Standard Expression (CASE) Ontology, providing specialized modules for modeling child exploitation investigations, operations, legal processes, reporting, offender tradecraft, and digital forensics activities.
About the Initiative
The CAC Ontology is shepherded by Project VIC International, but further development of this initiative is open to any participant. The CAC Ontology represents many of the concepts used in spoken and written language globally by government and law enforcement agencies, NGOs, academic organizations, and commercial industry.
Our plan is to continue to evolve this family of ontologies to represent new victim-centric language as it is developed and used across the world. We view the CAC Ontology as a semantic foundation that AI technologies can build upon.
We understand that not all language is represented, so we ask persons and organizations to provide concepts, documents, and data that we can reference to improve the CAC Ontology.
Key Features
30+ Specialized Modules
Comprehensive coverage of child exploitation investigation domains organized into six domain areas: Core Framework, International Coordination, High-Priority Criminal Activities, Specialized Investigation, Technical Support, and Victim Services.
gUFO Integration
Enhanced semantic precision with comprehensive gUFO (Unified Foundational Ontology) integration for improved temporal modeling, validation capabilities, and semantic precision.
SHACL Validation
20+ validation modules with comprehensive business rules ensuring data quality and consistency across all ontology modules.
UCO/CASE Compatibility
Seamless integration with Unified Cyber Ontology and CASE frameworks, maintaining compatibility while extending capabilities for crimes against children investigations.
Real-World Examples
30+ example files based on actual law enforcement cases demonstrating practical applications of the ontology in real investigations.
International Support
Global coordination frameworks supporting 120+ countries with international legal harmonization and cross-border operation capabilities.
Get Started Today
Join the community of investigators, researchers, and developers working to standardize crimes against children investigation data.
Quick Links
Ontology Documentation
Explore the comprehensive ontology modules, their relationships, and usage guidelines. View on GitHub
Examples & Gallery
View real-world examples and use cases from actual law enforcement investigations.
Resources
Access downloads, publications, presentations, and reference materials.
Join the Community
Get involved in developing and improving the ontology for crimes against children investigations.
Adopters
See organizations and agencies using CAC Ontology in their investigations and operations.