Instagram Launches ‘Amber Alerts’ To Help Find Missing Children

Instagram has said it is launching AMBER Alerts on Instagram, allowing people to see and share notices of missing children in their area.

According to the social media in its blogpost, the new feature in partnership with agencies across the US, the UK and Australia will start rolling out today, the 1st of June and be fully available in 25 countries in the coming weeks.

The development follows the successful launch of launched AMBER Alerts on Facebook in 2015 which has been helping authorities to find and quickly locate missing children.

The company stated that it is bringing AMBER Alerts to Instagram for the first time, noting that the feature was developed in partnership with organizations like the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the US, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, the National Crime Agency in the UK, the Attorney General’s Office in Mexico, the Australian Federal Police and more.

It stated, “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.

Michelle DeLaune, President and CEO at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children said, “Instagram is a platform based on the power of photos, making it a perfect fit for the AMBER Alert program. 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.”

What you should know

• The social media platform said the alerts have assisted in hundreds of successful child endangerment cases in the US and around the world, like 11-year-old Charlotte Moccia of Springfield, Massachusetts who was rescued by Amanda Disley and her husband in 2020 through the Facebook platform.
• Amber Alert was first issued after a four-year-old girl was abducted in Lakeland, Florida.
• Amber Alert is available in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Ireland, Jamaica, Korea, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, South Africa, Taiwan, Ukraine, the UK, the United Arab Emirates and the US.  The company said this will be extended in the coming weeks.