The Calgary Herald

In worldwide first, data and photos to be shown on Internet

By Mark Lowey

Canada's missing children can now be found on the information highway -- the first on-line service of it's kind in the world.

Launched Wednesday, the link allows anyone with a personal computer and modem to search a comprehensive database of cases -including photos of missing children and in some cases, their abductors.

"There are three million Canadians actively surfing the Internet and now we have access to these people," says Anne Radie, spokeswoman for Missing Children Society of Canada, based in Calgary.

The society is one of six missing children's agencies across the country participating with the RCMP and other police forces in the computer linkup.

"This is really the next step in information transfer," Radic said Wednesday.

She said the society's investigators in the field will be able to connect by computer to the missing child database wherever there's a telephone.

The database is now accessible at what's called a World Wide Web site -- text and graphics are provided to anyone with a moderately powerful computer, modem and 'Net-searching software.

Called Child CyberSearch Canada, the site was set up by the Civil Service Co-operative Credit Society (CS Co-op), Marketcess Communications, an Ottawa online service, with guidance from the RCMP Missing Children's Registry.

Child CyberSearch's goal is to help locate missing children by making timely information available to the public, says Duane Yeager, a partner in Child CyberSearch Canada.

"This is the first site of its kind in the world," he said from Ottawa. "It's really exciting."

Yeager said his company approached the RCMP about a year ago with the idea for the non-profit, "feel-good project."

Canada's more than 1,400 police forces have been invited to put information on the computer site, he said.

The database contains a photograph and description of each missing child and, where appropriate, a photo of the abductor. The RCMP provides the pictures.

Also on the database; a toll-free hotline (1-800-843-6678) where people can pass on information; details on the six missing-children agencies involved; and an on-line library of streetproofing tips and other resources.

There are also addresses of more than 30 "child-safe" Internet sites around the world, where children can cybersurf without parents worrying about questionable material.

Yeager said the service was launched with about 45 missingchild cases from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. More will be added from the RCMPs caseload of 1,000, which is growing by 50 a month, he said.

"It's frightening,' noted Radic, that there were 51,973 reported cases of missing children in Canada last year -- including 6,550 in Alberta. About three-quarters involve runaways.