ATMs to have photos within hrs of Missing Children-Portugal

Posted by pamsupportfromireland
Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:57 pm Post subject: ATMs to have photos within hrs of Missing Children-Portugal

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Portugal News Online

27 September 2008

ATMs to have photos within hours of Missing Children


In the foreseeable future, Portugal is intending to have an innovative system in place whereby the country’s mobile phone users will receive a text message with the photograph of a missing child within three hours of being reported missing.

The Ministry of Justice is currently negotiating with the country’s mobile telephone operators and other private entities in a bid to rapidly divulge images and information of a child who has been reported as missing.

Radio stations, television channels and roadside panels along major routes, and even automatic teller machines are to be used in the alert system for abducted children which Portugal is in the process of finalising.

Late last year, and during Portugal’s presidency of the European union, Lisbon proposed a rapid alert system for missing children.

At the time, Portuguese Justice Minister Alberto Costa said the planned system would be “flexible”, directed primarily to media and the general public, and help “complement” the existing cooperation between police authorities of the member states.

The cross-border alerts would be triggered when authorities considered there was a risk of an abducted child being taken to another country, the Justice Minister explained.

Another initiative in the same field, Mr Costa said, will be the publication of a list of missing children on an e-Justice Internet portal which the Portuguese presidency plans to unveil by the year’s end.

The portal, he added, would allow the public “direct contact” with central authorities.

The Ministers also called for the strengthening of legislation against the use of the Internet for crimes directed at minors and urged member states to ratify the Convention on Cyber-crime and the Council of Europe’s convention on the protection of children from exploitation and sexual abuse.

Speaking in turn, EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini said that instead of building a completely new missing child system, member states will aim to achieve “inter-operability” of existing national networks.

The Italian commissioner also encouraged EU member states to give compulsory medical treatment to convicted paedophiles if they re-offend.