This Wednesday, Meta announced that it will begin rolling out AMBER alerts (Notifications of Missing Children in the Region) on the Instagram platform across 25 countries. Meta says it has helped authorities find hundreds of missing children since it introduced AMBER Alerts on Facebook in 2015.
AMBER Alerts for Instagram has been developed with several organizations including: the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the US, the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the US National Crime Agency, the Attorney General’s Office in Mexico, and the Australian Federal Police.
With this update, if the AMBER alert is activated by law enforcement and you are in the selected search area, the alert will appear in your Instagram feed. The alert will include the missing child’s photo, description, last location and other available information. Instagram will use signals such as your IP address, location services (if enabled) and the city listed on your profile to determine if you should receive an AMBER alert.
The AMBER feature will be rolling out on Instagram today and rolling out over the next two weeks in 25 countries including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Ireland, Jamaica, Korea, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, South Africa, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates and United States.
