An
innovative Anglo-Portuguese scheme to strengthen child safety and
rapidly trace children who get lost or go missing has just been
launched. Already it is has attracted considerable interest among
parents, municipal authorities and large companies.
Based
on Android smartphone and Apple iPhone technology, the scheme has been rolled out in Portugal with
a view to expanding it throughout Europe and beyond.
The
system is called KiSH – Kids in Safe Hands. It has been
devised by an English computer expert, Steve Jones, in conjunction
with the Portuguese association for missing children (APCD) and with
the co-operation of the Portuguese judicial police.
Mr
Jones believes the KiSH system is better than anything
similar operating in the UK . He says he chose to launch
in Portugal partly because of the legacy of the Madeleine
McCann case, which has unfairly tainted the country’s child safety
image and damaged tourism.
He is
working in close association with Dr Patricia de Sousa Cipriano, a
dynamic young Portuguese lawyer, mother of two and founder- president
of the APCD. Margarida Durão Barroso, wife of the
president of the European Commission, is vice president of the
association.
KiSH works
by parents downloading an ‘app’ that allows them to enter a
photograph and a description of each of their children. This data is
automatically coded and registered digitally at KiSH’s global
control centre based in the UK.
If a
child goes missing, in whatever circumstances – from simply getting
lost in a crowd to running away from home or being abducted - a
parent can alert the control centre with the press of a button.
Details
of the child, including a photograph, are then immediately relayed
from the database control centre to security staff at the appropriate
location in Portugal.
In
extreme cases, such as criminal abductions, the APCD and the
judicial police may stop publication of photographs or information if
displaying them publicly is deemed potentially dangerous.
Public
and private venues, including shopping malls, sports stadiums and
leisure facilities, are being invited to link into the system.
The
Lisbon-based Benfica football club has been among the first to join.
The international Auchan Group has agreed to bring the more than 40
hypermarket stores it owns in Portugal - the Jumbo and Pão de
Açúcar chains - into the project. The system is
expected to be introduced to lifeguards on many beaches in the
Algarve and elsewhere in Portugal this summer.
Speed
is of the essence in the system. If a missing child is not quickly
found by parents or local security staff, the police in the
area will be informed via the APCD.
Steve
Jones emphasised that photographs of children would be held only in
parents’ phones. Images would be stored in the database purely in
code form and only dispensed to security agents if and when parents
raise an alarm. Under no circumstances will images be issued to
unauthorised personnel.
“Control
will always remains in the parents’ hands,” said Mr Jones.
There
are more than one and three-quarter million children aged 14 or under
in Portugal. The number soars when visitors arrive on holiday.
Even
though Portugal is generally a safe country for children,
many go missing each year, as
in most other countries.
In
addition to reuniting missing children with their distraught parents,
the KiSH system will help establish meaningful statistics.
It will tabulate not only the numbers of children going missing and
why, but also the most vulnerable times and places.
The
public authorities thus will have better information on which to base
policies for child safety in Portugal.
Parents
can join the system by buying an iPhone app from the internet Apple
store. The Android smartphone version will soon be available from the
Google play website.
The
annual fee for parents is €6.99, regardless of the number of
children parents are registering.
For
more information, please email: lenport@gmail.com
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