Wireless AMBER Alerts
April 2006
The wireless industry has always recognized the vital role it plays regarding public safety, and now enhances its vast array of socially responsible initiatives by offering Wireless AMBER Alerts™. Partnering with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and law enforcement agencies, the wireless industry is making potentially life-saving AMBER Alert text messages available to wireless subscribers at no charge.
The Wireless AMBER Alerts Initiative is available, through participating carriers, to wireless subscribers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. With more than 60 percent of Americans owning wireless phones, and seldom going anywhere without them, the alerts significantly increase the reach of the notification program by informing people of the emergency situation wherever they are! Past experiences indicate the first three hours are critical to the successful recovery of an abducted child, and the Wireless AMBER Alerts will be an invaluable tool in assisting the search process.
Wireless subscribers must opt in to receive the geographically specific Alerts, and may do so at www.wirelessamberalerts.org, or by visiting their wireless service provider's web site. The Alerts are simple text messages, appearing on wireless devices in the same manner as any other text messages.
Wireless AMBER Alerts will potentially serve as a preventive tool as well. People who prey on innocent children will perhaps think twice before carrying out their malicious acts, knowing that almost any cell phone owner they pass could identify perpetrators and have access to the immediate means to guide law enforcement officials to their location.
The Wireless AMBER Alerts are delivered over a platform developed and managed free of charge by Syniverse Technologies. NCMEC will re-disseminate the AMBER Alert to wireless carriers after law enforcement has issued the Alert.
The wireless industry is proud to offer subscribers an extraordinary opportunity to assist law enforcement by possibly making the wireless connection of a lifetime... and helping reunite parents and guardians with their abducted children. For more information, go to www.wirelessfoundation.org/Amber.
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