At its meeting last week, the FCC adopted a new Emergency Alerts Service event code for persons who are missing or abducted. The traditional AMBER Alert applies to persons under 18 years of age. According to the FCC, this leaves out a lot of missing people.
“According to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), during 2023, roughly 563,000 persons were entered into its missing persons database. Of these entries, approximately 188,000 were 18 or older. As of December 31, 2023, there were 96,955 active missing person records, of which roughly 68,000 were 18 or older.”
As a result, the FCC voted to adopt a new event code that will apply to missing individuals who are 18 years of age or older:
“We therefore revise our Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) rules to adopt and implement the three-character code “MEP” as a new EAS event code. This will facilitate the delivery of alerts for missing and endangered person, including “Ashanti Alerts,” “Silver Alerts,” and other state-enacted alerts, such as “Feather Alerts,” over the EAS and WEA system.5 In so doing, we again promote public safety—similar to our efforts with AMBER Alerts—by providing law enforcement, EAS Participants, and WEA providers “with a means to quickly disseminate information pertaining to serious” missing and endangered persons cases.”
Importantly, the FCC established a 12-month phase-in period which begins when the FCC’s decision is published in the federal register.
Also, the use of the new “MEP” code will depend on law enforcement. In New York, all AMBER alerts are triggered by the NY State Police. One of the key issues is the overuse of the EAS system. We will be working with the NY State Police to coordinate the implementation of this new alert code.
You can access the FCC’s decision here.
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