Facebook users can sign up to receive AMBER Alert bulletins for their state which will be sent to them through their news feed.  A total of 53 new AMBER Alert pages have been created, one for each state, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia.  Facebook users will also be able to share the AMBER Alerts with their friends.

Information about the new initiative was announced today by Facebook, the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).  The announcement was made the day before the 15th anniversary of the abduction and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, namesake of the national AMBER Alert Program.

“As the National AMBER Alert Coordinator, I am pleased to see the growth of the program’s national network, said Laurie O. Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs.

“I would like to thank NCMEC and Facebook for working together to develop another way the public can join with us to bring home missing and abducted children.  We each can play our part by being aware and responsive to AMBER Alert postings that we will now see on Facebook."    

Christian Dwyer
Senior VP
General Manager
MapQuest Inc.

The new widget features pictures and information about children who are missing from the geographic area for which the MapQuest Local page is set. Users have the ability to search for missing children and link directly to NCMEC’s homepage for other missing children resources.

"In the National Center’s 25 years of existence more missing children come home now than ever before, but much more needs to be done," said Ernie Allen, President and CEO of NCMEC.

"The generosity of AOL and MapQuest has enabled us to increase the scope and channels by which we can share information about missing and exploited children."

Through the widget, users can view pictures of missing children and details about their disappearance. If they recognize one of the missing children or have information about one of the cases, they should contact NCMEC via their website or call 1-800-843-5678.

"We worked with NCMEC to create the new missing children widget on MapQuest Local to provide our users with a way to help bring these children home," said Christian Dwyer, general manager and senior vice president at MapQuest.

"Working this information into our Local site helps visitors to be constantly aware of how they can help in areas where they live or are visiting."

The video fingerprinting technology provided by Google will allow analysts at NCMEC to conduct faster searches of video and images in its database to flag files with child pornography. Other tools will allow analysts to quickly review video clips. 

www.MissingKids.com
(Photo Credit: NCMEC)

A group of Google engineers led by Dr. Shumeet Baluja have worked with federal agencies and NCMEC’s analysts in its Child Victim Identification Program to create software to automate the review of 13 million pornographic images and videos that had to be manually reviewed before the introduction of the technology.

Since it was established in 1984, NCMEC has worked with law enforcement agencies on more than 140,900 missing child cases, leading to the recovery of more than 124,500 children.

Baluja writes, "The keys here were organization, scalability, and search. In particular, the tools we provided will aid in organizing and indexing NCMEC’s information so that analysts can both deal with new images and videos more efficiently and also reference historical material more effectively."

"We hope the tools we’ve built for NCMEC will help its analysts make the important and often time-sensitive work of investigating child predators faster and more efficient."
 

Social networking sites such as Facebook, and MySpace provide a convenient and easy way for teens to post personal information along with pictures and videos, which can make them targets of online predators.

In a study by the University of New Hampshire researchers for the NCMEC revealed that of the one in seven youth who received a sexual solicitation online, 70 percent were girls.

"The Internet is one of the greatest technological advances of our time, but it also makes it alarmingly easy for sexual predators to find and contact children," said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

"As Attorney General and as a father, I am committed to protecting our children from pedophiles who troll the Internet for kids. The ‘Think Before You Post’ campaign sends a strong reminder to children and their parents to be cautious when posting personal information online because anything you post, anyone can see: family, friends and even not-so-friendly people."

A study done by Cox Communications says that 61 of 13-to-17-year-olds have their own personal profile on social networking sites such as MySpace, or Friendster. Additionally the study found that 50 percent had posted pictures of themselves online and that one out of five teens believed that it is safe or "somewhat safe" to share personal information on a social networking site.

Thirty-seven percent of the demographic said they were "not very concerned" or "not at all concerned" about someone using their information in ways they had not approved.

In another study carried out by the University of New Hampshire for NCMEC, found that 34 percent of youth’s ages 10 to 17 had posted their real name, telephone numbers or home address and 45 percent had posted their real age.

"We are very pleased with our continuous partnership with the Ad Council, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the U.S. Department of Justice," said Andy Hirsch, Executive Creative Director/Partner at Merkley + Partners.

"Online sexual exploitation is front page news and we’re happy that we can continue to lend our services to help educate teens and their families about this potential danger."

The Technology Coalition and the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography include a Blue Chip roster of tech and finance companies that will develop and deploy technology aimed at disrupting the ability of predators to use the Internet to exploit children or traffic in child porn.

That roster, for the Technology Coalition are AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft, EarthLink, Google, and United Online, who will work to enhance knowledge sharing in the industry, improve law enforcement tools, and research perpetrators’ technologies in order to enhance industry efforts.

Google will also be joining the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography, a group of leading banks, credit card companies, third party payment companies, and Internet services companies working to stop the flow of funds to child pornography web sites. The Financial Coalition was formed in 2005 under the guidance of Senator Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala), Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

Members of the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography are: America Online, American Express Company, Authorize.Net, Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup, Discover Financial Services LLC, e-gold, First Data Corporation, First National Bank of Omaha, Google, MasterCard, Microsoft, North American Bancard, Nova Information Systems, PayPal, First PREMIER Bank/PREMIER Bankcard, Standard Chartered Bank, Visa, Wells Fargo, and Yahoo! Inc.

“Both Coalitions exemplify the best spirit of private industry, as these companies set aside their competitive zeal to work together to protect the world’s most vulnerable citizens,” said Ernie Allen, President and Chief Executive Officer of NCMEC and ICMEC. “Google is to be commended for bringing its considerable expertise to the fight.”

“Google has joined these efforts as part of its zero-tolerance policy on child pornography and those who would promote it,” said Nicole Wong, Associate General Counsel, Products and Intellectual Property, of Google Inc.

“Participation in these coalitions will be critical to our efforts to protect children on the Internet, which include actively supporting law enforcement efforts to track down predators, finding new technological solutions, and participating in industry-wide initiatives.”

In 2001, the CyberTipline operated by NCMEC had received more than 24,400 reports of child pornography. By the beginning of 2006, that number had climbed to more than 340,000.

If members of the public have knowledge of a child pornography web site, they are encouraged to report it immediately to the CyberTipline managed by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (www.cybertipline.com or 1-800-843-5678).

Citizens outside the United States can call the CyberTipline or can contact any number of hotlines around the world. To learn more about these hotlines, visit the web site of the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE) at www.inhope.org.

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The five companies will fund a new “Technology Coalition,” a sort of Justice League, within NCMEC with aim of disrupting predators from using the Internet to exploit kids and distribute child pornography.

The coalition, who’ve pledged a combined million dollars in initial funding will develop and deploy technologies for that purpose. In a statement, the companies agreed to offer “the full backing of their collective experience, knowledge, and expertise.”

“Child predators take advantage of Internet technologies not only to help distribute images of child exploitation, but also to attempt to conceal their criminal behavior,” said Ernie Allen, President and CEO of NCMEC.

“These leading companies have a wealth of expertise and technological tools that can help protect children and reduce the proliferation of sexually abusive images of children. Similar tools have been used to protect users from other Internet-related threats, such as spam, phishing and viruses. Now they can also be applied to this fight against child pornographers.”

The Coalition will be meeting in July 2006 to draft its charter and to evaluate a timeline for identification and deployment of technologies. The group says it will be working toward four principal objectives:

* Developing and implementing technology solutions that can detect and disrupt the distribution of known images of child exploitation on the Internet.

* Research perpetrators’ technologies to enhance industry efforts by evaluating the specific and emerging technologies used by child predators to exploit children and conceal their activity.

“It may not be possible to eradicate all threats to children online, any more than it is possible to protect children from all threats in the physical world,” said John Ryan, Chief Counsel of AOL.

“However, by better leveraging 21st century technologies, we believe it is possible to increase the chance that child predators will be caught and provide a deterrent to those who would be tempted to exploit children on the Internet. The proposed Coalition would employ the best minds of the Internet industry to develop deterrent strategies and technologies.”

Interestingly, Internet technology powerhouse Google is absent from the list of major corporations contributing to the effort.

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Photos are provided to the right of the map, enlarged by rolling over them. Clicking on the icon causes the markers expand to a conversation balloon listing where the child was last seen and who to call. In some instances, age progression photos are also provided.

The profiles include the child’s name and circumstances of the child’s disappearance, and a link to the NCMEC profile where a viewer can find additional information. State maps show missing children from each state and a national map shows all recently missing children.

The site was built by search engine marketing and web design company Ekamtech as a public service in hopes to aid searchers in finding these missing children, as well as a way to display the powerful features of mapping technology.

“We hope that by presenting the NCMEC information in this manner this site will contribute to enhancing awareness of missing children cases in the United States,” writes the company on the homepage.

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