Instagram on Wednesday announced it will start featuring AMBER Alerts, allowing people to see and share notices of missing children in their area.
“Instagram is a platform based on the power of photos, making it a perfect fit for the AMBER Alert program,” said Michelle DeLaune, President and CEO at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. “We know that photos are a critical tool in the search for missing children and by expanding the reach to the Instagram audience, we’ll be able to share photos of missing children with so many more people.”
The feature started rolling out on June 1, and be fully available in 25 countries in the coming weeks.
The company said the feature was developed in partnership with organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Crime Agency in the UK, the Attorney General’s Office in Mexico, the Australia Federal Police and more.
“We know that the chances of finding a missing child increase when more people are on the lookout, especially in the first few hours. With this update, if an AMBER Alert is activated by law enforcement and you are in the designated search area, the alert will now appear in your Instagram feed.”
The alert will include important details about the child such as a photo, description, location of the abduction and any other available information that can be provided. People can also share the alert with friends to further spread the word.
These alerts are rare and specific to the search area. If you get one, it means there is an active search for a missing child nearby. In order to know who to show these alerts to, we use a variety of signals, including the city you list on your profile, your IP address and location services (if you have it turned on).
“AMBER Alerts are an important way we can support our communities in keeping children safe, and we look forward to continuing this work.”