ICAAS Project. International Conference “Information Management to Stakeholders inside a Child Abduction Alert System”

ICAAS, the project funded by the European Commission Direction General Freedom, Security and Justice “Italian Child Abduction Alert System (ICAAS)”, of which Formez is one of partners and which is led by the Italian SIReNE Office (a section of the Servizio per la Cooperazione Internazionale di Polizia del Ministero degli Interni), aims at implementing a “rapid alert” system in the case of child abduction. The purpose of the event was to submit to the partners, the functioning methods of the alert systems used by other countries by outlining in detail the technical mechanisms for diffusing alert signs by means of the mass media.
The works were opened by the Director General for Personnel and Training of the Italian Department for Child-friendly Justice, Mr. Luigi Di Mauro, and the Counsellor Valeria Procaccini, Examining Judge and Head of the Central Conventional Authorities of the Department for Child-friendly Justice.
The speakers present were the following: the Swiss Television in Italian, the Head of Office of editorial strategy of the French Ministry of Justice, the American NGO ICMEC who deals with abducted children, the coordinator of the Canadian project on wireless communication, a representative of the communication platform with Hellenic media and Qualcomm, who outlined the potential tools produced by the company, so as to prevent kidnapping through satellite control. The interventions envisaged the different liaisons which can be created between the alert system players and the relative diffusion through the various channels available (TV, radio, transport system, telephony, Internet).
From the conference it emerged that in order to be effective, the alarm messages of kidnapping must be easily recognizable and must reach all those who can provide useful information for finding the abducted child. The involvement of the operators of mobile telephony and the wireless industry is determining, in order to reach people in real time and in a capillary manner. The statistics presented by Caroline Humer from ICMEC showed the extreme usefulness of the system (over 500 cases throughout the United States have been positively solved) and the civilian people’s wish of being involved. The following steps are the realization of a collaboration framework between police forces and all Italian stakeholders who showed interest in participating in the national alert system.