Simulation of a poster about a missing minor.
This is one of the models considered by the Ministry of the Interior.
"If you have information about the missing person, please contact us."
The Ministry of the Interior will begin to request citizen collaboration through the massive dissemination of messages on billboards located in streets, transport stations and bus shelters, similar to what has been done for years in other countries, especially in the United States.
Although the measure will focus mainly on speeding up the search for people whose whereabouts are unknown, especially when it comes to minors, the posters - which will be both static and video - will also broadcast alerts "in the face of security threats public”, such as the search for fugitives.
Until now, for this type of alert, the Interior had resorted to the media and the official profiles on social networks of the Security Forces.
The agreement details that the content of the message will be prepared by Interior and may include the name, age and sex of the person sought, of whom an attempt will be made to incorporate a photograph that is as up-to-date as possible;
a description of her physical appearance and the clothes she wore;
data on her state of health and medication that she was receiving;
make, model, color and license plate of any vehicle involved, and date, time and place of the event.
In the event that the wanted person is an escaped criminal who could be potentially dangerous "in case of direct contact", the message will refer to it.
All this, accompanied by a telephone number and, where appropriate, an email address "or another suitable channel" so that citizens can provide the information they have.
The agreement contemplates the elaboration of "an activation protocol" in order to "guarantee in the shortest possible time" that the message is disseminated "in all the supports that were available" at that time from the five collaborating companies.
The agreement also contemplates that, once launched, the message can be "altered depending on the evolution" of the investigation.
In addition, it will have graphic elements at all times that allow citizens to easily identify it as "an official content alert".
Poster placed in Ocilla, Georgia (USA), demanding help to find Tara Grinstead, yesterday. Elliott Minor (AP)
Although the alert will have a fixed validity period, it may be deactivated beforehand "when the causes that motivated it for having located the disappeared person end."
It is also planned to launch preventive messages “of awareness and sensitization” to improve citizen collaboration”.
The agreement, which is valid for three years, will not entail any cost for Interior, since the advertising companies have agreed to give up their spaces free of charge.
The agreement will speed up, for example, the dissemination of the so-called Amber Alerts (mass dissemination program to locate minors), intended for cases of disappearance of children in which there is fear for their life or physical integrity.
To date, one of these alerts has never been activated in Spain, although it was considered to do so during the disappearance, in February 2018, in the province of Almería of the eight-year-old boy Gabriel Cruz, whose body was located weeks later.
Then, the agents in charge of the investigation discouraged the dissemination of a message of this type for fear that it would provoke a reaction from the kidnapper.
📢@interiorgob will broadcast messages in advertising spaces to request citizen collaboration in police investigations
The Secretary of State for #Security, Rafael Pérez, has signed an agreement with five companies that have digital advertising monoposts pic.twitter.com/96cn4xsA2X
– Ministry of the Interior (@interiorgob) May 10, 2022
However, this type of message is very common in the US, where it emerged after the disappearance and murder in 1996 of the nine-year-old girl Amber Hagerman (hence the name used).
According to the statistics of the foundation that promotes it, since its launch until November of last year in this country, 1,085 minors had been rescued thanks to these messages.
In Europe, where the Amber Alert was established in 2014, the Czech Republic and Greece (with 12 cases each), are the ones that used it the most during 2020, the last year for which data is available.
France, the Netherlands and Poland only used it once.
The rest of the countries did not use it.
Of these 27 alerts, 83% were successful, according to data from this organization.
According to the latest annual report prepared by the National Center for the Disappeared (CNDES), dependent on the Interior, last year there were 22,285 reports of missing persons, 19% less than in 2019, the year before the pandemic.
90% of these complaints were resolved during 2021 itself. 83%, during the first 15 days.
66% of the cases corresponded to minors, most of whom were between the ages of 13 and 17.
As of December 31, 1,928 cases of the total number of complaints filed in 2021 remained active. In total, the police databases maintained a cumulative 5,411 active cases of missing persons at the end of last year.
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