OPP say they have identified issues with Amber Alert, taken corrective measures

Ontario Provincial Police say they have identified the issue that caused most of the province not to receive an Amber Alert early Thursday morning.

A little before 5 a.m. on Thursday, an Amber Alert was issued by OPP for a three-month-old-girl and her father, who had last been seen in the village of Roseneath in Alnwick-Haldimand Township, located between Peterborough and Cobourg.

A release was issued by police at around 6:50 a.m. that said the girl had been found unharmed, while her father had also been taken into custody.

While there was a safe ending to the case, most people across the province were unaware of the search as police confirmed on Thursday that the Amber Alert system had malfunctioned and they used a backup system to issue the alert to those in the vicinity of where the pair were last spotted.

“During the attempt to issue an AMBER Alert, the OPP experienced a technical issue,” a release from the OPP said.

“As a result, the OPP contacted the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre (PEOC), its counterpart at Emergency Management Ontario, which was able to issue the alert on the OPP’s behalf to LTE-connected wireless devices in the area where the child was last seen.”

Police say investigators did not believe the pair had travelled far from the area where they had last been seen.

On Friday, they blamed the Amber Alert failure on an automated third-party software update.

“The issue has been resolved, and the OPP’s Amber Alert system is once again fully functional,” OPP say.

Provincial police say they are also taking steps to make sure there is no repeat of Thursday’s issue, including creating a backup as well as a manual process that will allow access to the Alert Ready system without the use of third-party software.