AMBER alert rolled out on Aust Facebook

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"By getting the right information to the right people, at the right time, through AMBER Alerts on Facebook, we hope to help reunite missing children with their families faster".

"Would Facebook and AMBER alerts have been advantageous at the time of Joanne's and Kirsty's disappearance in 1973?"

Australia is the 13th country to get Facebook's amber alerts following the US, Canada and the United Kingdom and some smaller nations including Luxembourg, Malta and Jamaica.

The Queensland Police Service launched its own AMBER Alert System in 2015, and the system has already proved extremely helpful.

Facebook and the nation's police forces will begin issuing alerts about abducted children to Australian users.

"While the system streamlines protocols already in place, it is exclusively used in cases of an abducted child, however the element of abduction may not alone be enough to warrant an AMBER Alert".

AMBER alerts are named after nine-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was abducted in Texas in 1996, and have been adopted by law enforcement bodies around the world as a way to send critical information about abductions, via the media, to the public.

'It's not about the quantity of people that get this alert, it's about the quality, ' Ms Vacher said. "It might have been that one thing that saved his life", he said on Thursday.

There's no opting out of the alerts either, so if you're not bothered you either have to scroll past or close them down.

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Similar to weather warnings some people may receive, the alert system will send an image and details of the missing child to people in the vicinity of where the child was last seen.

"If you use any of the location products it certainly will give a more specific region that you are in, you will be more likely to see an alert than if you don't".

"A member of the public who had received the alert noticed the vehicle and as per the alert message they phoned 000 and advised police", police spokesman Samuel Dinnison said.

Ms Vacher worked in the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 11 years, including on the child abduction rapid deployment team.

"I have always said I want to put that team out of business".

"Getting information out while the child is in a auto and people know the licence plate and see it, that can save someone's life".

Western Australia used social media in the case of a missing child Joe, who was sleeping in the back seat of the family auto when it was stolen.

The success of this initiative relies on the commitment of our State and Territory police applying the Facebook AMBER Alert system in their respective jurisdictions and the Australian community who play a key role in helping police locate missing children.

"Abducted and missing children can have a profound effect on loved ones and the community as well as the child, which is why NSW is taking part in the national rollout", NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said.

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