The social network Instagram announced on June 1 that it has launched a new feature to search for missing children – AMBER Alerts.
“We know that the chances of finding a missing child increase as more people search, especially in the first few hours. With this update, if law enforcement activates AMBER alerts and you are in a specific search area, the alert will appear on your Instagram feed, ”the social network said.
Instagram notifications will contain information about the child: a photo, description, place of abduction, etc. “If you have received a notification, it means that there is an active search for the missing child nearby. To know who to show these notifications to, we use a variety of data, including the city you specified in your profile, your IP address and location services (if you have them enabled) “, – said in the social network.
AMBER’s Instagram warnings began to be implemented on June 1. The feature will be fully deployed over the next few weeks in 25 countries, including Ukraine, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Ireland, Jamaica, Korea, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia and Malta. , Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, South Africa, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
AMBER Alerts was developed in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the United States, the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Crime Agency in the UK, the Attorney General’s Office in Mexico, the Australian Federal Police and more.
In the spring of 2021, it became known that Instagram plans to create a version of the popular application for sharing photos, which can be used by children under 13 years of age. However, in September of that year, the company temporarily stopped developing an application for Instagram Kids. The decision was announced after criticism from society, US lawmakers and an investigation by The Wall Street Journal. Back in May, lawmakers in 44 US states called on the company to abandon the development of “Instagram Kids”. In September, the WSJ said that Instagram harms the psyche of adolescents. Mosseri told the WSJ that research is helping to improve and change Instagram, including the latest changes in the fight against bullying, private default accounts for people under 16, and more.