Admittingly long overdue, the Marco’s Alert pilot was launched yesterday,  nearly seven years after its namesake, young Marco Archer, disappeared and was subsequently found dead.

As National Security Minister, Marvin Dames explained, the pilot, a team effort by the police and Multimedia Technologies – gives both authorities and the public an opportunity to test the app’s usefulness over the next three months.

Once this is done, the next phase will kick in. 

“This is all in line with our government’s efforts to make reality sometime this year, the Marco’s Law and the Marco’s registry, the sexual offences registry,” Minister Dames said.

“And so the alert system, along with the sexual offences registry, are those areas that are currently outstanding and we call can attest that there is an urgent need to make this a reality.”

The public is required to sign up to receive alerts.  However, if the police should deem the information as extremely important, a mass message will be sent to the public, and that includes those who have not signed up, according to Officer in charge of Police Communications, Chief Superintendent, Zhivargo Dames.

“Our aim  is to assure you that whatever information is coming to you from this system, that it’s is a secure message coming from the Royal Bahamas Police Force, and you do not have to worry about that information that you’re receiving.  It will be authentic.

“And if you want to send information to the police , we can assure you that we will receive it, and that we will respond to the message or the information that we receive from you, the public,” said the officer.

The system is installed at the Police Data Center and backed up at the remote data center in Grand Bahama.

Similar to The Amber Alert in The United States, the alerts can be sent via phone, emails, pagers, fax, computer pop up screens, voice to any phone, loud speakers, secured encrypted messages and social media.

The police would be able to send alerts to the public and vice versa.