National police commissioner Khehla Sitole and Facebook’s director of Trust and Safety, Emily Vacher, launched the Amber Alert on Thursday in Sandton. The alert is a first in Africa.

Vacher says the alert will serve to complement work done by the police.

"What we are doing today is adding another tool in the toolbox to help those who are charged with finding missing children.

"Our system is designed to complement the hard work that is done by the police, by NGOs, by child safety organisations and by people who use Facebook to share information about missing children.

"We hope that this tool will amplify the alerting system to ensure that the right person sees the right information at the right time.”

Vacher says the app will receive information directly from the police, after which they issue the alert.

The information has to meet some requirements: the child must be under the age of 18; and police must have reason to believe that there is danger for the information to be shared with the public.

Sitole adds the Amber Alert will form part of already existing mechanisms to help bring children home safely.

#AMBERAlert | Vacher explains how the alert will work pic.twitter.com/e5V3zu7rKO

— Jacaranda News (@JacaNews) January 30, 2020

Jacaranda FM