The Toronto Star

Missing children hunt goes online

RCMP registry now on Internet

By Derek Ferguson
Ottawa Bureau

OITAWA -- Canada's missing kids may now be found on the Internet.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police yesterday announced its Missing Children's Registry will be on the Internet global web of computer networks reaching 30 million users.

About 3 million Canadians who use the Internet will be able to access the service called Child CyberSearch Canada. The online information is provided by the RCMP and six non-profit missing children's agencies.

"This system will help any law enforcement agency get the information on the system, locate the children as quickly as possible, whether it's a runaway, an abduction, whatever,"RCMP Sergeant John Oliver said yesterday.

With the service the RCMP becomes the first police force in the world to tap the information highway to help locate missing children.

There were 51,973 missing children in Canada in 1994, 77 per cent of whom were runaways of high-school age Oliver told a news conference.

The Internet will be especially helpful for solving abductions by parents because many involve more than one country he said.

"The technology is amazing," Oliver said.

We can have their photograph on a system that is accessible world wide by anyone who wants to access the information using a home computer and modem.

At present 50 children are profiled on the system.