Something They Hope They Will Never Need—

Parents Encouraged To Bring Children To An Amber Alert ID Session

By Shannon Hicks

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Newtown has teamed up with The Rotary Club of Danbury for a special five-hour campaign on this Saturday that participants all hope will prevent or lessen the fear of many parents: the disappearance of a child.

An AMBER Alert Kids ID Session will be held at the new Coldwell Banker office at 45 Main Street South. It will be conducted from 10 am until 3 pm. There is no charge to participate.

During an ID Session, parents are required to fill out and sign a brief consent form. The program is voluntary for all children under the age of 18.

Rotary Clubs across the state have teamed up with the Connecticut State Police Amber Alert Center at the Department of Public Safety. The Rotary Amber Alert Child ID Program brings the latest technology to the Amber Alert System.

With the new system a child’s color digital photo is embedded onto a wallet-size plastic card along with minimal yet essential information needed to find a child in the event of abduction. In addition to the card, strongly encrypted computer data — not connected to the Internet or any other system — can be accessed by state police immediately upon a child’s abduction.

Before they leave the ID session, parents are given their child’s AMBER Alert ID card, which has their child’s photo on the front and essential personal information on the reverse. The information includes the date the photo was taken and the age of the child when the photo was taken, the child’s birth date, height, weight, eye color, hair color, medical conditions (if any), physical markings and allergies (if any). Multiple AMBER Alert cards are available to parents.

There is a huge difference, say Rotary members, between these ID cards and those handed out by most schools.

“Kids who get ID cards in school are not protected,” said Robert J. Vetter, a member of The Rotary Club of Danbury and a chairman of the club’s AMBER Alert committee. “For one thing, those cards are a school ID that is good for one year.

“What’s worse is what’s included on those cards,” he continued. “I’ve seen cards that have the name of a child, his or her school, and even their teacher’s name all printed on it. That’s a blueprint to find a child.”

AMBER stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. The system was created as a legacy to 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was kidnapped while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas, and then brutally murdered.

The AMBER Alert System was started in 1996 when Dallas-Fort Worth broadcaster partnered with local law enforcement to develop an early warning system to help find abducted children.

AMBER Alert ID cards and their personal data are protected by making the access to the information only available to the few individuals who are authorized to activate an AMBER Alert. All access to the data is logged and audited by an independent nongovernmental organization.

“This information stays in the system until a child is 18 years old,” Mr Vetter said. “It’s secure and encrypted.

“Unlike school IDs, there is no name on an AMBER Alert ID card. There is just an ID number. There is no way anyone can put a name and face together just by looking at these cards and without access to a police computer system.”

Appointments are not necessary for Saturday’s session. For parents who already have an AMBER Alert ID card, it is recommended that they update their cards on a yearly basis.

Contact Bob Vetter at 748-1105 or Coldwell Banker’s Newtown office, 426-5679, for additional information.