NEW YORK: Facebook users in the US will soon receive Amber Alerts to help find missing children who may be located near them.
Alerts will be sent to users’ mobile phones if they are in a search area designated by local law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
They will include the missing child’s photo and any other relevant information, said Emily Vacher, Facebook’s trust and safety manager and a former FBI agent.
The alerts will appear in users’ News Feed, but will not trigger notifications to a person’s phone, the company said in a release.
Ms Vacher said the Amber Alerts will only go to people who may be in a position to help find the missing child.
“When people see this on Facebook we want them to know that this is a very rare occurrence,” she said.
Facebook said its users are already using the social media site to share information on missing children.
Last March, a missing 11-year-old girl was found in a South Carolina motel room when a clerk called police after seeing an Amber Alert shared on Facebook.
The warning system was launched after the 1996 kidnapping and murder of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman in Arlington, Texas.
Since then, more than 700 children have been found as a direct result of the alerts.
Amber Alerts are issued over TV and radio, on highway signs, as text messages and over the internet.
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