What’s Ontario’s criteria for issuing an Amber Alert and how does the system work?

When it comes to finding a child who is believed to be in danger, officers in Ontario say every minute counts and point to the effective role the Amber Alert system plays.

“If we go back historically, a vast number of our Amber Alerts have come to a successful resolution as a result of a vehicle being observed by a citizen, so someone who has received that message, observed the vehicle, and called 911,” OPP Det.-Sgt. Pierre Gautier told CityNews, noting Amber Alerts lead to a safe and successful resolution approximately 95 per cent of the time.

CityNews takes a closer look at Ontario’s Amber Alert system and many of the questions surrounding it.

What is an Amber Alert and what are the criteria for issuing one in Ontario?

An Amber Alert, named after Amber Hagerman — a nine-year-old girl from Texas who was abducted and murdered in 1996, is an emergency notification issued by Ontario Provincial Police if a child under the age of 18 is believed to have been abducted.

Any of the police services in Ontario can submit a request to OPP for an alert, so long as all of the following guidelines are met:

– Officers believe the child has been abducted
– Officers believe the child is in imminent danger (risk of bodily harm or death)
– Officers believe broadcasting the alert will help find the child
– One or more descriptions (of the child, the suspected abductor and/or the vehicle)

Gautier said the alerts will be issued across the province given past examples of how abducted children were found hundreds of kilometres away from where they were last seen. He went on to cite an instance from Thunder Bay.

“By the time we were notified, the suspect and a child had time to load onto a plane and fly to Toronto, and they’re out and around the Toronto area, so that’s a considerable distance that’s been travelled in a matter of two hours via plane,” he said.

How are Amber Alerts transmitted?

As soon as the OPP’s Amber Alert office verifies the information submitted, the alert is sent to broadcast distributors through the National Alert Aggregation and Dissemination (NAAD) service, a key part of Canada’s national emergency alerting system better known as Alert Ready.

It’s up to the OPP to produce the content of the alert, to select if it’s sent as a text and/or audio message, to select the geographic area it’s going to and to ultimately cancel it.

The NAAD, after receiving the request from OPP, is responsible for checking to ensure it meets the correct formatting and technical requirements before pushing it to the broadcast distributors.

The broadcast distributors (wireless, television, radio and cable and satellite operators) must relay that information through each of the mediums the companies operate.

Amber Alerts typically begin with a loud, eight-second “alert ready tone” followed by the approved text of the alert. It generally takes around 20 to 30 minutes to issue the alert after the paperwork is received at the provincial operations centre.

A similar process is used by various government and emergency entities to warn about fires, biological threats, hazardous materials, air quality, falling objects, severe weather, national security, civil emergencies, animal danger, 911 outages and system tests.

What should you do if you see the subjects of an Amber Alert?

Officers say if you see the child, the suspect and/or the vehicle they were reported to be travelling in, call 911 or your local police service immediately.

Do not call 911 about Amber Alert notifications on electronic devices: OPP

Various police services in recent years have reported instances of people calling 911 to complain after Amber Alerts are issued, specifically during night hours.

“It’s not the avenue to call 911 to complain about these things,” Gautier said, emphasizing the alerts are just for abducted children who are believed to be in danger.

“If you wish to complain, it’s well within your right to do that. We do like to keep the public in mind as minor as this inconvenience may have been, we’ll never apologize for the safe return of a child.

Can you opt out of receiving Amber Alerts?

No, you can’t opt out of receiving emergency alerts. Since there are requirements by the CRTC to distribute the alerts to LTE-compatible devices, it’s not currently possible.

However, according to Alert Ready, the alerts generally adhere to your device’s settings. If you have your phone set to silent or do not disturb mode, the alert should show up without a tone. If the alert comes in, the tone typically will correspond to whatever the device’s volume setting is set to.

The organization encouraged people with device-specific questions relating to alert tones to contact the device provider.