The government through the Ministry of Interior on Monday, March 18, formally unveiled the Meta Amber Alerts programme to help trace missing children.
The launch of the Amber Alerts also dubbed the Kenya Emergency Child Alert (KECA) was presided over by Interior Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo with the initiative done in partnership with Meta, an American multinational technology company.
In his speech, the PS stated that the launch was also done in collaboration with other crucial government agencies including the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI), the Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection Unit and Missing Child Kenya.
Meta’s Amber alerts are rare and specific to a search area, if you get an alert, it means there is an active search for a missing child within your jurisdiction.
To know who to show these alerts to, Meta uses a variety of signals and location services, only if you have the alerts turned on.
According to the Ministry of Interior, the new technology is designed to help find missing children by tapping into the extensive network of Facebook and Instagram to instantly notify users of missing children.
The amber alert includes important details about the child such as a photo, description, location of the abduction and any other available information that can be provided.
If an amber alert is activated by law enforcement and you are in the designated search area, the alert will appear in your feed.
"People can also share the alert with friends to further spread the word," noted the Missing Child Kenya Foundation.
"We know that the chances of finding a missing child increase when more people are on the lookout, especially in the first few hours," MCKF further stated.
Kenya becomes the 34th country globally and third in the continent to join this vital technological innovation.
The only countries in Africa that have adopted this new technology to trace missing people are South Africa and Nigeria with Kenya being the latest to follow in the footsteps of the two nations.
