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AMBER Alerts now to appear on your Facebook
account |
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January 15, 2015 |
On January 13, the National Center for Missing &
Exploited Children announced a partnership with
Facebook to send AMBER Alerts to the social
network's community to help find missing
children.
The new initiative will deliver AMBER Alerts to
people's News Feeds in targeted search areas
after a child has been abducted and the National
Center has issued an alert.
"When a child goes missing the most important
thing we can do is to get the detailed
information to the public as quickly as
possible," says Dawn Peck, Idaho State Police
Bureau of Criminal Identification Manager who
serves as the Idaho AMBER Alert Coordinator.
"The first few hours are critical in the search
for an abducted child and we welcome any tool
that assists in the recovery a child."
For most people, these alerts will be rare
because they will only go to people who are in a
position to help - those specifically within the
designated search area. If you get an alert on
Facebook it means there is an active search for
an abducted child going on in your area. The
alert will provide the critical information you
need to potentially help reunite a child with
his or her family.
People have already been using Facebook to help
find missing children. The National Center
reports that last year, an 11-year-old girl was
safely recovered after a South Carolina motel
employee recognized a photo of the girl in an
AMBER alert she saw on Facebook. The woman
called the police, and the child was found
unharmed. It's an amazing word-of-mouth efforts
like this that inspired Facebook to develop a
more
systematic way to help find missing children.
Here's how Facebook will complement existing
AMBER Alert distribution systems:
- Reach - Facebook's distribution system will
get the AMBER Alert to everyone who is logged
into Facebook on either their mobile device or
desktop during the alert if they are within the
designated search area as specified by law
enforcement.
- Detailed Information - The alert will include
any important details about the child such as a
photo, names and descriptions, location of the
abduction, a license plate number and any other
information that can be provided to the public
to aid in the search for the missing child.
- Share - The Facebook system enables people to
share the alert with friends and link to the
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
for the most up-to-date information about the
case.
"The alert on Facebook appear in News Feed will
not trigger any notifications to a person's
phone, but the AMBER Alert system itself may
activate the notifications with an alarm to
mobile phones in the search area," says Peck.
"In Idaho we have not had many alerts but some
may remember the tone from their phone the first
time it was activated in August 2013 during the
search for Hannah Anderson."
AMBER Alerts are a child abduction alert system
that started in the United States in 1996. AMBER
stands for America's Missing: Broadcast
Emergency Response and was named for Amber
Hagerman, a 9-year-old abducted and murdered in
Arlington, Texas.
AMBER Alert in Idaho is a program of voluntary
cooperation between broadcasters, cable systems,
and local and state agencies to enhance the
public's ability to assist in recovering
abducted children. The Idaho State AMBER Alert
Advisory and Review Committee oversees the AMBER
Alert process flow, agency responsibilities, and
after action review.
The decision to declare an AMBER Alert is made
by the police organization investigating the
abduction when the agency determines that a
child was abducted and is in imminent danger.
The agency then requests the Idaho State Police
to issue the alert. |
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