“The first of its kind in Africa, the Amber Alert system will enable the SAPS to seek help from the public when it is suspected that a child has been abducted and there is reason to believe there is an immediate and serious risk to the health or welfare...
Speaking at the launch, national police commissioner Gen Khehla Sitole said: “Today we are implementing a strong partnership which will assist SAPS 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, Facebook”.
“A senior member of the SAPS will assess whether these criteria have been met before authorising the Amber Alert,” explained Facebook. “The police service will then notify Facebook's global security operations centre, which operates 24/7, that a verified Amber Alert is active.” This is followed by Facebook “quickly” sending the alert to the news feeds of people located in targeted search areas in SA.
“This is an important step forward in our continued investment and commitment not only to SA but across the African continent. The goal is to instantly galvanise the entire community in the search and recovery of a missing child. Using Facebook enhances the current distribution system by providing all of this information in one place and giving people the ability to share it, wherever they are,” said Emilar Gandhi, Facebook’s head of public policy for the SADC region.
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