HARTFORD — A new tool was unveiled this week to help find children who have been abducted.

Governor Dannel P. Malloy announced Tuesday that, as part of National AMBER Alert Awareness Day, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has partnered with Facebook to send AMBER Alerts to the social network’s community to help law enforcement find missing children. When a child goes missing, the first three hours are critical and the most important thing to disseminate to the public detailed information about the missing child as quickly as possible.

AMBER Alerts are a child abduction alert system that started in the United States in 1996. AMBER stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response and was named for Amber Hagerman, a nine-year-old, who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas.

On Tuesday, Gov Malloy said that it is critical for everyone to work together to locate a child when one is missing.

“That’s why this partnership is so important,” he said. “It will provide law enforcement with another tool to communicate vital information to the public in an emergency situation. Disseminating critical information quickly to members of the public and encouraging them to act helps law enforcement find abducted children and reunite them with their families. It’s an important step to keeping Connecticut safe.”

The Connecticut AMBER Alert System has been in place since June 2002. The goal of a Connecticut AMBER Alert is to instantly alert the public to be law enforcement’s eyes and ears to assist in the search for and safe recovery of an abducted child. In Connecticut, the AMBER Alert Plan unites local and state police, radio and TV stations, the Department of Transportation, Connecticut Lottery, AT&T, and now Facebook so that members of the public can all work together to help locate and return an abducted child to their family.

Nationwide, as communications and evolving technology has improved, child abduction rates have dropped dramatically. Between 1997 and 2011, the US saw a 31 percent decline. Facebook alerts are an important next step in driving them down even further through improved information dissemination.

Facebook will complement existing AMBER Alert distribution systems through reach, comprehensive information, and community involvement.

“Reach” means Facebook’s distribution system will get the AMBER Alert to everyone who is logged into Facebook (on both mobile and desktop) during the alert if they are within the designated search area as specified by law enforcement.

The alert will include important details (“comprehensive information”) about the child such as a photo, description, location of the abduction, and any other available information that can be provided to the public to aid in the search for the missing child.

Community involvement happens because the Facebook system enables people to share the alert with friends and link to The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for the most up-to-date information about the case.

The new initiative, according to Facebook Trust and Safety Manager Emily Vacher, will deliver alerts to people’s News Feeds. These alerts will appear, she said Tuesday via press release, “in targeted search areas after a child has been abducted and The National Center has issued an alert.”

Law enforcement will determine the range of the target area for each alert. The number of alerts people see will depend on how many are issued in an area; some Facebook users may see a few each year while others will likely get no alerts at all, said Ms Vacher.

The alerts will appear in the News Feed, but will not trigger any notifications to a person’s phone.

“For years,” she said, “people have used Facebook to post news articles about missing children and AMBER Alerts. In several cases, someone saw a post or photo in their News Feed, took action, and a child was safely returned.”

Last year, Ms Vacher pointed out, an 11-year-old girl was safely recovered after a South Carolina motel employee recognized a photo of her in an AMBER Alert she saw on Facebook. The woman called the police, and the child was found, unharmed.

A Connecticut AMBER Alert, according to the governor’s office, will include the name and description of the child, a description of the suspected abductor, and a description and license plate number of the abductor’s vehicle. The Connecticut AMBER Alert system only issues an alert when law enforcement determines that a child was abducted and the child is in imminent danger. This team effort has been used successfully in Connecticut several times over the last 13 years, the governor said.

Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner Dora Schriro said AMBER Alerts will only go to people who are in a position to help, to those “within the designated search area.

 “If you get an alert on Facebook,” she said Tuesday morning, “it means there is an active search for an abducted child in your area and that child’s life might be in danger. The alert provides the critical information you need to help law enforcement reunite that child with their family.”

Emily Vacher said Facebook is counting on its users to vigilant.

“We know the chances of finding a missing child increase when more people are on the lookout, especially in the critical first hours,” she said. “Our goal is to help get these alerts out quickly to the people who are in the best position to help.

“With more than 725 children recovered as a direct result of AMBER Alerts since the program launched in 1996, we know the system works,” she added. “We hope our new delivery mechanism will help increase that number and reunite even more families.”