Topic: Since this morning, Facebook is part of the 52 official partners of the French Amber Alert, so called "Alerte Enlèvement". First time in Europe !
Seven months ago, Nicole Guedj, former French Minister, and creator of the Amber Alert in France, initiated a call for Facebook to sign the Convention, in the French daily newspapers: “A partnership with Facebook would be useful. We have to use every new technology available to stop child kidnappers. They have to know that with the old media, the Internet or with the phone, millions of people will be aware of the kidnapping, and it could prevent them from acting out” (1st of March, in the French daily newspaper Le Figaro).
Nicole Guedj, then Secretary of State for the protection of victims’ rights and president of the Red Helmets Foundation, has made herself heard. The next French Amber Alerts will be published on the Facebook users' wall if they previously liked the dedicated Facebook page.
User's guide:
- "relay information": become a member of the Kidnapping Alert Facebook page
- "send invitations": ask your friends to join themselves the social network and the Kidnapping Alert page
- "publish on your wall": share the information with your own network
- "Bring together your community and this action": if you're a group administrator, call all members to register on the Facebook page and to ask their own group's members to do so
- "the Kidnapping Alert is now activated": automatically, display of the child's description on the wall of every person registered on the Facebook page.
At first, the French Amber Alert was only broadcasted on old media. To extend its impact, the Red Helmets Foundation created in 2009 the 2.0 version, in partnership with Orange, Free, SFR, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Dailymotion, blogSpirit, the ASIC and Silicon Sentier. In 2010, the Red Helmets Foundation decided to develop a mobile app for iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Windows Phone 7 to involve the largest number of people as possible. Nicole Guedj invites all the Facebook users to support this new evolution of the 2.0 French Amber Alert.
According to Nicole Guedj, a last step will still need to be taken: extending the French Amber Alert to European countries: “Since its creation, the Kidnapping Alert proved itself and I am particularly pleased about what has already been accomplished.). However, more improvements could be made. It’ has been a long time I am calling for the extension of the alert to the European scale. Nowadays, it’s very easy for an abductor to cross borders; alert bulletins issued in the same time in several countries would prevent even more kidnappers from acting out. Our Belgian and Swiss neighbours, whom I had supported in their fight to implement the kidnapping alert in their own country, agree to cooperate. Let’s bet this cross-border agreement will be effective before the activation of a new alert”
Become a member of the "Kidnapping Alert" Facebook page : www.facebook.com/alerteenlevement
Download the mobile phone application on:
- iPhone: http://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/id356083465?mt=8
- Blackberry: http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/12184?lang=fr
- Android: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.casquesrouges.AlerteEnlevement&feature=search_result
More information : www.casques-rouges.org
Press contact :
Sarah Aizenman – 06.15.89.91.85 – sarah.aizenman@casques-rouges.org
