CARY, N.C. -- Two organizations are teaming up to help neighbors reunite missing children with their families.
Ring, a home security company, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children announced their new partnership Wednesday. In a statement, both companies said NCMEC posters will be featured prominently within Ring's neighborhood watch app, Neighbors.
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More than 424,000 missing children were reported to law enforcement officers in 2018, according to the NCMEC.
"NCMEC was created to make finding missing children a priority in our country, and change the way we search for our kids. Now, social media and technology are a huge part of our success," John Walsh, co-founder of NCMEC, said in the joint statement. "By partnering with the Neighbors App by Ring, a community safety app with millions of users, we will reach more people than ever before. Child safety is everyone's responsibility and we know this partnership will help us bring even more children home."
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The app will work by displaying missing child posters, complete with the child's photo and description, to Neighbors app users within a five mile radius of the child's last known location. According to a statement from a representative, one of the first missing posters that will go live within the app is that of Maia Sykes, a young girl from Cary, N.C., who went missing in April 2018.
According to the statement, Ring is also donating to support NCMEC's efforts to use Facebook geo-targetting to reach neighbors who might have information about missing children.