It can be a nightmare for a parent to find out that their child is missing. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an estimated 800,000 children are reported missing in the United States every year. Unfortunately, all missing children cases reported to the police are not eligible to have a traditional Amber Alert issued for them especially if police officials do not believe that an abduction has taken place and the child is not in a life-threatening situation.
A technology company called SecuraTrac, LLC located in Hermosa Beach, California, created a child safety service called SecuraChild. Through this free service, parents enter pertinent information about their missing child including name, age, height and weight on the SecuraChild site. Parents also have the option of providing additional personal information relating to their child including medical conditions, photos and videos. In the event that a child registered on the site is missing, parents can quickly log into their account to alert SecuraChild and also provide descriptive information including where the child was last seen and what the child was wearing. Then, a community response alert goes out to thousands of SecuraChild members through both email and text and social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Parents also receive a document via email with all of the stored information about their child to provide as key information for police and help ease the process of registering their missing child with law enforcement.
“We are using social media and word-of-mouth efforts to help find missing children,” explains Chris Holbert, CEO of SecuraTrac.
SecuraChild is a fully encrypted site and each account and information submitted is secure for users. According to Holbert, 90 percent of their users are based in the United States. They also have users from other countries including Mexico, Canada and in the Philippines. Through the site, parents have the opportunity to reach so many people to assist with find missing children in seconds.