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Everything you need to know about mobile Amber Alerts
At 2:38 PM on May 19th, 2017, my phone buzzed, emitting a high-pitched tone. So did the phone of my colleague Roberto Baldwin, who was standing with me inside a Starbucks near our office. Actually, all of the phones in that Starbucks buzzed at the same time, setting off a cacophony of synchronized alarms. An Amber Alert had just gone out for a missing 1-year-old child, last seen in a 2000 tan Toyota Corolla. Everyone in that Starbucks, and possibly the entire San Francisco Bay Area, saw the same message at the same time.
The FBI needs your help finding 250 sextortion victims
Lucas Michael Chansler is a 26-year-old sexual predator sentenced to 105 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of child pornography production. Over several years, he tricked roughly 350 teenage girls from 26 states into giving him explicit pictures of themselves by posing as a teen boy and befriending them online before threatening to distribute the photos on social media. He was eventually tracked down to his Jacksonville, Florida home when one victim reported his extortion attempts to the FBI and the The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. While the Feds have been able to locate more than 100 of his underage victims, nearly 250 young women have yet to be identified. And that's where you come in.
Google adds AMBER Alerts for missing children to Search and Maps
In partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), Google announced on Wednesday that it has added AMBER Alerts to its Search and Maps services for desktop and mobile devices. AMBER Alert notifications will be displayed for your local area or locations based off of web search content. Alerts will be updated as information becomes available, but may include case details such as a description of the abducted child and the make and model of their alleged abductor's vehicle. While this service is only available in the US, Google is working with Missing Children Europe and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection in hopes of bringing similar services to more countries.
FBI's Child ID app helps iPhone users find their missing children
The FBI has just released its very first mobile app, aimed at helping parents deal with their worst nightmare -- a missing child. Known as Child ID, the application allows users to store their kid's photos and identifying information directly on their handsets, making it easier to provide authorities with vital data whenever the little one disappears. Parents can also use the tool to dial 911 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with the tap of a button, and can instantly e-mail their child's details to law enforcement officials, thanks to a dedicated tab. Of course, some may feel uncomfortable with keeping such personal information stored on a smartphone, but the Bureau insists that none of the data will be collected or shared without authorization -- and they're pretty good at keeping secrets. For now, Child ID is available only for iPhone, though the FBI plans to expand it to other mobile devices in the near future. Interested iOS users can download it for themselves, at the iTunes link below.
