From June 1, 2022, a new feature AMBER Alerts will appear on Instagram. It will help people see and share reports of missing children in their area. Relevant alerts are already helping to find missing children on Facebook.
What is AMBER Alerts alert
Reports of missing children will include photos, a description of the child, the abduction site and any other available information. Users will be able to share notifications with friends to share information.
If the user has been notified of a missing child, it means that an active search is underway nearby.
To know who to show notifications to, Meta takes into account user profile information, IP address and geolocation (if enabled).
When and where AMBER Alerts will work
In a few weeks, AMBER Instagram notifications will be available in 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, Great Britain, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
How AMBER Alerts helps find missing children
In 2020, Amanda Disley and her husband helped rescue 11-year-old Charlotte Mocchia from Springfield, Massachusetts, after seeing the AMBER Alert message on Facebook. And in 2016, AMBER Alert was announced after the abduction of a four-year-old girl in Lakeland, Florida. Caitlin Brown, an anesthesiologist at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, was on a lunch break when she saw a Facebook alert, learned about the missing child, and took prompt action.