Instagram to issue missing child 'amber alerts' to people's phones across the UK

dailystar.co.uk:

Instagram users are being enlisted in the hunt for missing children, as the social media app plans to start issuing 'amber alerts' to its users.These alerts, which are quite common in the USA, will send notifications to Instagram users' phones with details about the missing child including a photo, description, and their last known location.The alerts have been developed by the National Crime Agency and it is thought they could play a vital role in locating missing children because of the visual nature of the photo-sharing app.Meta (formerly Facebook), which owns the platform, said the feature will begin rolling out on Thursday in the UK and 24 other countries.Emily Vacher, director of trust and safety at Meta, said: "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.“Amber Alerts are an important way we can support our communities in keeping children safe, and we look forward to continuing this work.”Louise Newell, from the National Crime Agency’s UK missing persons unit, added: “Amber Alerts are a crucial tool in helping to get a message out quickly about a missing child and often result in vital information from the public that helps law enforcement to locate them.“Having a really visual social platform like Instagram on board with issuing such alerts is great news, bringing missing children cases to a larger, more diverse audience and therefore increasing opportunities to find a missing child.“If you have any information relating to a missing child alert, however small, you.