“I don’t love being called, you know, Chris Hansen of 2021 for a number of reasons,” Powell said, reflecting on the criticism sparked by “To Catch a Predator” and its host. Powell said she is aware of those concerns, adding that the show has taken lengths to avoid identifying any of the men who engage with her underage characters, blurring their faces and distorting their voices. The premise of “Undercover Underage” appears to follow in the same vein as other undercover sting shows popularized by Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator,” which drew controversy prior to it’s 2007 cancellation over allegations of entrapment as well as the suicide of a man as the show’s crew filmed police approaching his house. “We really develop, we build-out our entire character because a real teenager has friends and hobbies and an astrological sign and a family or a best friend.” “We kind of just threw a decoy online, whereas now we have a really thorough process for putting together our decoy,” Powell said in an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media. While with the company, Powell said she had her first experience creating teenager characters - or “decoys” - a process that she wrote about and later refined after being contacted by a production crew that turned her article into a show. Powell founded the nonprofit last year after leaving her previous job with Bark, an app that allows parents to monitor their children’s phones for signs of cyberbullying or online predation. To add to the sense of danger, the team is also seen out in the real world - always alongside police or security, Powell insists - following their van-driving targets to nail down an identity.

In a recent trailer for the series, Powell is seen donning the identities of Mia, Lizzie and Hannah, undergoing a transformation convincing enough that she can speak to targets in video calls, while her team attempts to track down the real identities of the men on the other side of the screen.

The project, a docuseries titled “Undercover Underage,” is set to premiere Tuesday on Discovery+. For the past year, Powell and her team at the New Haven nonprofit, Safe From Online Sex Abuse, have been filming their online encounters with men who believe they are speaking with teens, often played by Powell herself.

Catching online predators jobs