The Romanian Police and Facebook made a very important announcement for millions of Romanians from all over the country, and we are talking about the launch of an extremely important new system that can help find kidnapped children, the system already being offered in other countries around the world.
Facebook brings the AMBER Alert system to Romania through a partnership with the Romanian Police. If a child goes missing, Facebook will distribute an AMBER alert to people in the areas where the child was last seen. Alerts will include detailed information and a photo of the child. People will be able to access the alert later for details they missed at the time and, more importantly, share it with friends.
Emily Vacher, Director, Trust & Safety at Facebook, says keeping the community safe means everything to the Facebook team. "We are proud to collaborate with the Romanian Police to bring AMBER Alert to the Romanian community, to help children and their families. When a child is reported missing, the most important thing we can do is get information out to the public as quickly as possible. Through AMBER alerts on Facebook, which provide the right information to the right people in a short time, we hope to reunite missing children with their families.”
"In the case of a kidnapped child, any information about him that reaches us can mean a better chance of finding him alive and well. Sharing the message through the social media platform Facebook will categorically help us in sharing the child's reports and the details of the case. The chances will therefore increase that people of good faith, who can help us, will find out about the case and support the investigation with information. Thanks, in this way, to the representatives of Facebook, for their support and involvement." said Chief Police Commissioner Emil GĂNȚOI - specialist officer within the Investigations Service within the Directorate of Criminal Investigations - Romanian Police.
The chances of finding a missing child increase when as many people as possible are involved in the search missions - especially in the first 24 hours. Our goal is to help disseminate these alerts to people who are in the search area for the missing child and encourage them to spread the word by sharing the official missing child announcement with their friends.
Every day, people use Facebook in different ways for various purposes, from sending birthday wishes to a friend to sharing photos with family members who live far away. But a few years ago we realized something extraordinary was happening – people were using Facebook to encourage their friends and family to find missing children. In several cases, people took action after seeing a post or photo in their News Feed. Thus a child was brought home safely.
In October 2016, an AMBER alert was issued for a 4-year-old girl who was kidnapped in Florida, USA. Kaytlin Brown, an anesthesia technician at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, was on her lunch break when she recognized the missing child after seeing an AMBER alert on Facebook. Her quick reaction saved the little girl. This way of transmitting information inspired us to develop a system to help find missing children.
