Amber Alert Teams Up With Facebook

Wednesday, 27 May 2015 06:14

Facebook will soon start sending out Amber Alert notifications to users who opt in to the service

OXFORD COUNTY - Locating missing children within the county is about to get easier when Amber Alert teams up with Facebook to notify users of an alert in their area.

As a large group of the population relies heavily on their mobile devices and social media, this will be another way to spread the message quickly. OPP Constable Lisa Narancsik spoke with Heart FM and provides more information about this exciting, new, potentially life saving advancement. "Facebook is going to geo-target a delivery system - meaning that it's going to allow them to target a specific area where a person goes missing or their last area of known location where they were last seen. They will then send out a notification to the people that subscribe to that area."

With Amber Alert and Facebook joining forces it will allow alerts to be sent out in the area of the disappearance immediately to notify residents. Narancsik offers a few words to the public on why they need to join this service to help protect children in your area, "If people see this system on there, if they see it linked to their Facebook account, please log into it and join because the Amber Alert gets an important message out. We need those messages to be out in a timely manner to ensure that the individuals are brought home safely."

OPP Constable Narancsik explains it is imperative to spread the Amber Alert as quickly as possible and this is just another way of achieving that. "We know that it's crucial to get the information out there in the first hour after someone goes missing to enable that we have a safe recovery. With the systems being involved it will allow the Amber Alert to reach a larger delivery group."

When this service is implemented you will be notified and then you will have the option to join the service and Narancsik is hopeful that everyone will do so to reduce the rate of missing children.