The Dutch National Police agreed to continue using AMBER Alerts after earlier announcing it would use another alerting system. In April 2021, Netherlands was going to switch to using the Burgernet system for child abduction alerts. In September, the Dutch National Police signed an agreement to take over issuing the alerts from AMBER Alert in Europe. Netherlands was an early adopter of AMBER Alerts in 2008 and has pioneered innovative ways to notify the public about abducted children. The Dutch AMBER Alert system has been deployed 1,042 times. In 94% of the cases, the child was found alive and well.
A majority of parliamentary members in the Netherlands support keeping AMBER Alerts for child abduction notifications instead of adopting a new program called the Burgernet system. The lawmakers passed a motion in June 2021 to stop the change scheduled for July 22. Burgernet is being used by local police for suspects wanted in urgent criminal investigations and government officials say it is cheaper than the AMBER Alert program. “AMBER Alert has been a success for years. It has enormous reach, great results and works internationally. There’s no reason to throw it away so abruptly,” said Joost Eerdmans, co-sponsor of the motion.
Law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands plan to replace AMBER Alert and Missing Child Alert notifications in July with a separate citizen warning system called Burgernet. Minister of Justice and Security Ferd Grapperhaus said the change will create a more coherent, centralized service for warnings about criminal suspects as well as missing adults and children.
AMBER Alert Europe President and Founder Frank Hoen believes the switch is a mistake. “When the term ‘AMBER Alert’ is mentioned people know that a missing child is in danger,” he said. “We are gravely worried that with the disappearance of the AMBER Alert, the collaboration between the public and the police will also vanish.”
AMBER Alert Netherlands estimates 95 percent of the Dutch public knows about the purpose of the AMBER Alert. Since November 2008, the Netherlands issued 30 AMBER Alerts and 1,010 Missing Child Alerts. The missing children were found safe in 94% of cases, often with the assistance of the public.
Food delivery workers in the Netherlands are now helping find missing and abducted children. Deliveroo meal deliverers are taking part in a national campaign called “Ride to Find,” and will look out for missing children after receiving an AMBER Alert on their work app. The deliverers will also have missing person posters on their delivery bags.
The meal delivery service Deliveroo included posters of missing persons while bringing food during the month of May in the Netherlands. The “Ride to Find” campaign had the company’s couriers bring posters of one of five people who have been missing for a long time. The campaign was tried in December 2018 in the United Kingdom and helped find three missing people. Belgium also participated in the Ride to Find campaign in January 2019.
The Netherlands is the first country in the world to expand AMBER Alerts to automated teller machines (ATMs). Starting in May 2019, more than 300 ATMs began showing photos of missing children on the screens in airports, shopping malls, popular tourist attractions and other selected locations. The ATMs will show AMBER Alerts and the Vermist Kind Alert, a notification for an endangered missing child.
AMBER Alert Netherlands is now 10 years old. The Dutch AMBER Alert was one of the first child abduction notification programs in Europe and is the founding partner of AMBER Alert Europe. The Dutch alert also inspired AMBER Alert programs in Luxembourg, Malta, and Slovakia. The AMBER Alert program was launched on November 11, 2018, and has issued 25 AMBER Alerts and 981 Missing Child Alerts. To date, 94% of the children have been found successfully.
Germany has joined with the Netherlands to be part of the AMBER Alert Europe program. The two countries will now be able to reach more than 100 million people if an AMBER Alert is issued.
The Netherlands started its child abduction alert system in 2008 and is the founding member of AMBER Alert Europe.
The program uses SMS text messages, email, social media, smartphone apps, pop-ups and screensavers, website pop-ups, highway signs, TV and radio, digital signs and advertising screens to notify the public when a child has been abducted in a certain area.
The two countries already had an ad-hoc cooperation agreement to notify the public when a child was abducted. The first AMBER Alert was issued for two missing brothers who were last seen near the German-Dutch border. The second alert was issued for a 4-year-old boy from Groningen, Netherlands, which is only 30 minutes away from the German border. A citizen’s tip helped to safely find the boy in less than 2 hours.
“Germany and the Netherlands are 2 of the most interconnected countries in the world,” said Viviane Kusters-Brokerhof, spokesperson for AMBER Alert Netherlands. “We need to make sure that in the future it only takes a child alert 90 seconds to be issued in the entire region–-in German and in Dutch—and on both sides of the border.”
German and Dutch residents can register to receive the alerts at www.amberalert.eu.
An AMBER Alert in the Netherlands helped recover an abducted 4-year-old boy who was taken to Germany. The suspect's car was recognized after the alert went out to the media and social networking sites. This was the second time a Dutch AMBER Alert helped recover a child in another country.
The Netherlands now uses an iPhone app to send AMBER Alerts. More than 1.2 million Dutch citizens already get the alerts automatically by e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and digital signs throughout the country. The FBI Child ID App, which provides automatic AMBER Alert notifications and allows parents to store pictures and a description of their own children, inspired the new app.