Ukraine has become the 25th country to launch the Amber Alert notification service that leverages the public’s help to track down missing kids.
It sends detailed information and photos of the abducted children and suspected abductors to Facebook users living in the area where a missing child was last seen.
Users will see the notification on their Facebook news feed as soon as Ukrainian law enforcement determines that a child has been abducted and there is enough information to know where to look.
“These alerts are rare and specific to the search area,” according to Emily Vacher, director of the trust and safety department at Facebook. “If you get one, it means there is an active search for a missing child going on around you and your eyes and ears could help.”
The efficiency of the service depends on where users received a notification from Facebook. “If a search is being conducted in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains, far fewer people will see it than if the abduction takes place in the center of Kyiv,” Vacher told the Kyiv Post.
Nearly 14,000 children go missing annually in Ukraine, according to the National Police. Ukrainian law enforcement usually finds them within the first day in 97% of cases.
Amber Alert increases the chances to find an abducted child, especially in the first 24 hours, as more people would be looking, Vacher said.
Facebook is the most popular social network in Ukraine — nearly 16 million people use it to send birthday wishes, share photos with family members or communicate online.
“All users have messages, to which they respond instantly. I ask you to add Amber Alert to this list,” said Ihor Klymenko, head of Ukraine’s National Police.
Globally, the notifications from Amber Alert are distributed through different channels like text messages, radio, TV or digital road signs. “There are, however, multiple cases in which we know that alert on Facebook helped,” Vacher said.
For example, when a 5-month-old was abducted in Missouri on Jan. 3, 2018, Amber Alert’s notification on Facebook was shared by 46,000 people and viewed over 2 million times. One user who received the notification spotted the abductor’s vehicle and called the police. Within 43 minutes after sending the first notification, police found and returned the child to its guardian.
“With over 1,000 children recovered in the U.S. since 1996, when the Amber Alerts program started, we know that it works,” Vacher told the Kyiv Post.
