Malaysia among 25 countries Instagram will launch alert system to help find missing children

Instagram is hoping to put the power of its vast social network to good use by launching Amber Alerts for missing children as a new feature on the platform. Already operational on Facebook, the system is now rolling out to Instagram in 25 countries.

In the United States, the Amber Alert system is a national child abduction emergency alert system that raises the public’s awareness and calls for their help in locating missing children — a system that is now integrating social networks.

Instagram will, for the first time, allow alerts to appear directly in users’ news feeds in order to draw their attention to a missing child in their area.

“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,” explains the Meta-owned social network.

The alert will include important details to allow users to recognise the missing child, such as a photo, a description, the location of the abduction and any other information deemed useful. Users will be able to share the alert to help spread the message.

In terms of deciding which users should see the alerts, Instagram explains: “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).”

The service will gradually roll out to 25 countries: 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 United Arab Emirates and the United States. It may later be deployed in other countries too, the platform said.

To develop this function, Instagram worked in partnership with organisations such as the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the United States, but also with the UK’s National Crime Agency, the Attorney General’s Office in Mexico, the Australian Federal Police and more.

Amber Alerts were deployed on Facebook in 2015, and notably helped locate a four-year-old girl in 2016 in Lakeland, Florida, and an 11-year-old girl in 2020.

“Instagram is a platform based on the power of photos, making it a perfect fit for the Amber Alert programme,” 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.”