Today is officially the AMBER Alert Awareness Day (January 13, 2010) as declared by the US Department of Justice in commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of the abduction and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman. Many of you are probably aware of AMBER alerts as they now appear not only on highway signs, on TV, via email notifications but also more recently on iPhone applications and within Twitter. It is CRITICAL that people become more aware of the services being offered, especially since it seems that our neighborhoods are becoming increasingly more “dangerous” for children to live in.

To highlight this day, and child-safety in general, AmberAlert.com (a privately-held company that exists to help ensure the safety of children and families), is working to help distribute information and technology to make this daunting and scary task of keeping your kids safe a bit easier. During times of stress (e.g., a child being missing or sick), it’s important to have all of the critical information readily available for law enforcement. Frequently when a child goes missing, parents or guardians are too distraught to gather relevant information about that child. To that end, AmberAlert.com has created something called L.E.A.P. (Law Enforcement Alerting Portal), a technology for issuing AMBER Alerts at no cost.

AmberAlert.com & My Child ID

AmberAlert.com also has a pretty nice device that helps parents organize critical information about their children in the event that something bad does happen. It’s called the “My Child ID” which securely stores and organizes critical information about your children including:

• vital information
• medications
• allergies
• physicians
• emergency contacts
• activities
• friends
• family
• and more

Packaged in a small (10cm) and  creative package, the My Child ID features:

• 128 MB of storage
• A small LCD (1.4 inch) screen for viewing pictures of the children
• Multi-platform support (Mac, Windows & Linux)
• Securely encrypted data
• Geo Analytics
• Integration with L.E.A.P. 2.0 which reduces the time to getting accurate information to law enforcement

It also features “Private Alerting” so that you can send email and/or text messages to all of the contacts stored within the device (which, if you have registered, you can also do from the My Child ID web-based portal). The My Child ID itself costs $39.99 and is available for order online. Do note, that the first year of Private Alerting is free but thereafter, you are charged $9.99/year for the storage and backup of your information. More information about My Child ID is available on their FAQ page.

While I personally have not tested this device out this (I do plan on getting one and will post a review once I have set it all up), I do fully believe in having this type of critical family and child information readily available in one form or another should that worst-case happen to your family. There may be other organizations providing similar products or you may just do-it-yourself, regardless, you should always have the critical information readily available. What AmberAlert.com is doing is great, in my opinion.

What else can you do?

Simply start by becoming more aware. Then there are other things that you can do, including:

• Compile critical information
• Always carry a recent photo of your children
• Ensure that parents, grandparents, guardians, friends, family, babysitters, etc. know where they can get this information quickly and easily
• Subscribe to the AMBER alert mailing lists (I believe that these are regionally available)
• Read the information contained on AmberAlert.Gov
• See active alerts on the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
• Watch & listen for AMBER Alerts when you drive, are listening to the radio or watching TV
• Subscribe to AMBER_Alert Twitter notifications (@AMBER_Alert)
• Get the FREE Amber Alert iPhone app (iTunes link)
• Just be aware of suspicious people and behavior wherever children are present

Being cautious and protective of your children is something that should go without saying. Even if you don’t have kids, when an abduction occurs, everyone can potentially help. The sooner that information is disseminated, the better the chances of recovering the child. So please do what you can to help!

HTD says: Always be prepared for the worst case scenario!