Police recover over 90% of reported missing children in 2016

More than 90 percent of missing children publicized by the police last year have been located, the Ministry of Public Security said.

The ministry's Emergency Response System for missing children, also known as the "Reunion" system, has released information on 1,317 missing children since May 2016, with 1,274 eventually located, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday.

A total of 750 missing children had run away from home and were safely returned, while 43 children remain lost. Among the missing children, 75 drowned, 29 were murdered and seven died in other accidents, Xinhua reported.

Police working on missing child cases first post messages on their internal system, including photos and physical characteristics of the child. This information is then posted on social media platform Sina Weibo from the Reunion platform, the Chinese government website reported in May 2016. So far, 19 new media outlets and 21 apps have linked up with the platform.

The ministry announced that several apps have recently connected to the platform, including those of China National Emergency Broadcasting and Tencent News and Alibaba's smartphone security app Qiandun. The platform's Weibo account had more than 500,000 followers as of press time.

If a child is reported missing, those in the area will immediately be informed, and people within a 100-kilometer radius will be notified within an hour. After three hours, people as far as a 500-kilometer radius will be alerted.

Liu Zhenfei, Alibaba's chief risk officer, said that Alibaba will continue to invest in the system.

"The system will also use technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence," Liu said, adding that in the future, the "Reunion" system will be used to find missing senior citizens, Xinhua reported.