Rome – The Servizio Centrale Anticrimine of Direzione Centrale Anticrimine della Polizia di Stato and the AMBER Alert Europe Foundation have announced a cooperation agreement to foster information sharing on missing children and child alerting including best practices on technological innovation and standards, cross-border cooperation, community building and citizen sourcing.

The agreement, in form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), strengthens the existing relationship between Polizia di Stato and the AMBER Alert Europe Foundation, and formalizes their mutual interaction in the field of missing children and child alerting. The MoU was signed by the Director of Servizio Centrale Anticrimine, Mr Giuseppe Linares, and Chairman and Founder of AMBER Alert Europe Foundation, Mr Frank Hoen.

The MoU is a form of mutual commitment of functions and duties of both parties in the area of law enforcement training, cooperation in research, and assistance in transposition of EU policies and decisions. The mission of the AMBER Alert Europe Foundation is to assist in saving missing children at risk by connecting law enforcement with other police experts, and with the public across Europe.

Missing children are extremely vulnerable subjects as they are exposed to significant risks, regardless of the circumstances of their disappearance. For this reason, the Polizia di Stato has always been engaged in activities in order to strengthen the protection of children, including through instruments which use new technologies to reach out to the public.

The partnership will help both parties to achieve, at working and strategic level, common goals that will increase information exchange and assistance in cases of missing children, laying foundations for long-term cooperation between Servizio Centrale Anticrimine and AMBER Alert Europe Foundation.