Police team up with Facebook to launch Amber Alerts

The exponential rise in technology and computing power has given the world unimaginable means to increase the quality of life. Using this advantage to fight the most basic of evils should then come as a natural evolution of crime-prevention tactics.

Already up and running for almost three weeks, the South African Police Service’s partnership with Facebook and the social media giant’s Amber Alerts system is in full swing.

Announced on 30 January 2020, police hope to utilise this revolutionary technology as a modern way to combat an age-old crime. Commenting at the launch, Emily Vacher, Facebook’s Director of Trust and Safety said, “Already available across 23 countries globally, we are proud to partner with the police to make Amber Alerts available in South Africa, the first African country to join this programme.”

Amber Alerts allows Facebook users to receive priority notifications on their news feed that enable them to spread the word of a missing child quicker. Amber Alerts creates a network linking the missing child and suspected abductor with matches on hair colour and clothing, which is then dispersed to their friends, family and Facebook groups.

National Police Commissioner, General Khehla Sithole spoke at the launch saying, “Today we are implementing a strong partnership which will assist the police in improving our response time, to enable us to find and safely recover vulnerable missing, abducted or kidnapped children through one of the world’s most popular social-media platforms”.

Amber Alerts are initiated by the police once they feel a case meets the required criteria. Victims must be 17 or younger, and there must be reasonable belief that the child is in imminent danger. There also needs to be a sufficient description of both victim and possible abductor, which police believe will be imperative in locating the child. An appointed police officer assesses the threat before notifying Facebook’s 24-hour Global Security Operations Centre, which will then initiate the Amber Alert.

While there may still be much human input needed to secure a positive result, the use of technology will make the hard process of pin-pointing location that much easier. Should members of the public suspect a reason for an Amber Alert, they asked to gather as much information as possible to make the police’s initial assessment more efficient. Technology may be a modern tool, but strong human beings are needed to properly utilise that tool.