- Parents invited to document vital statistics of child
- Only available on Apple software for the time being
Last updated at 4:18 PM on 8th August 2011
America's Federal Bureau of Investigation have launched an application which can track lost children - but they insist that they are not taking the vital information provided to spy on users.
The controversial Child ID - which is free - went on sale at the end of last week in America and is designed to help parents speed up the process of contacting the relevant authorities should their young on go missing.
When the app, which needs a mobile device with a camera, is activated, the FBI, the police and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children can be contacted at the click of a button.
Helping hand: Child ID has been launched to help parents in America to quickly contact the authorities should their child go missing
Compatible with Apple's iPhone, iPad 2 and iPod Touch, the new application allows those with young ones to fill in vital statistics about their children, so that they can save time when raising the flag if one goes missing.
Parents will be invited to input information about their child's height, weight, name, nicknames, ethnicity, date of birth, home address and a variety of other important information that would assist police in finding the lost child.
Along with the statistics, parents should, in addition, take a photograph of their little one with the mobile device and send that along with the other information.
The FBI have said that they are developing plans to add support for using pictures stored on the device - a move that will allow parents to use photos taken with another camera and sent to the mobile device via e-mail or a direct transfer.
The new application, which is free, was released on Friday
Further, the application has tips about the best steps that a parent can take after a child goes missing.
However, the FBI underlined that data about children will not be held by the organisation or by Apple.
Indeed, they insist that the only way information about the child can be viewed by the FBI is if the user of the application sends it and activates the application.
Aside from the iPhones and iPad, the FBI intends to develop the application so that it can be used on other mobile devices including Android and BlackBerry phones.
One other likely step with the application would be sending GPS data when parents transfer data to help local police forces locate the user, and hopefully cut even more time.
Also the FBI noted that 'you can show the pictures and provide physical identifiers such as height and weight to security or police officers on the spot'.
Since the release of Child ID the main criticism has been the lack of password protection on the application - without it, the phone could find its way in to the wrong hands.
Either false reports could be filed - a waste of time and money for police - or the child's vital statistics could be accessed and stolen.
'The FBI (and iTunes for that matter) is not collecting or storing any photos or information that you enter in the app,' a statement from the FBI read.
'All data resides solely on your mobile device unless you need to send it to authorities.'
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